re: Class of 2018 Recruiting MEGATHREAD: So Long Old Friend Edition

Lets be honest here, he's not "a very good TE". He's a physically built in-state recruit. He'll probably be a blocking TE down the road.

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Lets be honest here, he's not "a very good TE". He's a physically built in-state recruit. He'll probably be a blocking TE down the road.

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Had a very good senior season. But his frame is what Alabama needs on the end of the LOS.

You go to USC?

If so, that's awesome, man

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He'll probably be a blocking TE down the road.

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Hell, that's 80% of TEs under Saban.

Signing Day 101: What you need to know (247Sports) -- segments:

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Early enrollee – High school players who are on track to graduate after the first semester of their senior year and intend to enroll in college in January. These players sign scholarship papers/financial aid agreements but not NLIs. The scholarship papers bind the school to the player, but not vice versa. For example, Josh Malone was an early enrollee in the 2014 class and he signed scholarship papers with Tennessee, Georgia, Clemson and Florida State but ultimately enrolled at Tennessee last January. Enrolling early is beneficial for a player because it allows them to go throe spring practice. Early enrollees are beneficial for programs in that they can also “back count” them – a term will address next – to the previous year.

Back counting – Any player who signs a financial aid agreement has to be listed as an “initial counter” and be assigned to a specific recruiting class. If a player is an early enrollee, he can be an initial counter with the current recruiting class or he can be back counted to a previous class that had room available. Early enrollees can help programs navigate around scholarship limits for a specific season and can sometimes lead to “oversigning,” a controversial practice we’ll discuss next. So if school “A” has room for 25 commitments in this class and can back count 7 early enrollees to previous recruiting classes, they can actually sign 32 players in this class.

Oversigning – College football teams are allowed a maximum of 85 players on scholarship, and can only accept a maximum of 28 NLIs each year. So if a schools has 65 players on scholarship and signs a full recruiting class of 25, that technically would have 90 players on scholarship instead of the max of 85. Schools don’t have to be at 85 until the fall, however. That leaves room and time for natural attrition like transfers, academic failures, medical departures or other scenarios. In the past, when facing a numbers crunch, some players who were promised scholarships by a school had to look elsewhere. The NCAA has taken several measures to prevent oversigning by putting new rules in place, and now making schools offer four-year guaranteed scholarships – provided they are students in good standing – instead of the previous one-year renewable scholarships that were offered in the past.

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Im not having a meltdown

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could've fooled everyone.

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I know we will be ok but not everyone is going to be happy about it

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you don't have to be "happy" about it, but you should have some perspective about it.

A) we just won the freaking natty
B) we just turned over 1/2 of the staff less than a month ago. this class is on the last staff. let's judge THIS staff moving forward (and we'll be more than fine)
C) 2019 is going to be a monster year for us with some in-state help as well
D) it's ONE class out of a decade and it's still a good class with a CB and a DE that most people think have a chance to be extremely special. They filled a lot of needs and missed a few. Shite happens

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Sorry but not sorry

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yeah. we know

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but we still had a chance at #2 up until today

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Not quite, our ceiling was #3...no way we were getting past UGA or OSU...but our floor was outside the top 10 'cause if we had missed on Surtain, not sure how far we'd have fallen...hoping we can get Waddle and end on a good note...

Missing on Brown hurt and might've cost us Langham as well...

Read the following over on the AU board about Ross; think they got it from the 247 board:

Here's what Justyn Ross had to say, some interesting stuff....

Who came at you hardest at the end?
“Alabama.”

What went into the decision?
“Just being able to develop more as a receiver. All the receivers they have developed and put in the league, I want to be the next one.”

Promise playing time?
“You can’t make a promise like that. It all depends on him, what I do when I go in there.”

What more did Alabama do in recent days?
“They were showing a lot of love. Calling me and stuff like that. I have a great relationship with them too, but it’s all about my future.”

When did you firmly make decision?
“Last night.

Why not Auburn?
“It’s nothing wrong with them, I just felt like Clemson was better at developing receivers.”

Impact of Trevor Lawrence being there?
“It means a lot. I’ve thrown with Trevor a lot at The Opening and combines. He’s a great quarterback and as a receiver you are going to need a great quarterback. That played a big part.”

Next year for my fifth year, have to finish undergrad here first. Still shocked I got in. I thought it was going to be a reach but they thought otherwise so I got an interview and was notified of admission within a week. It's gonna be a scary and new experience but i'm excited

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It's the only logical explanation. Why would Saban pass on kids at a position where we currently can't trot out a 3-deep without having a plan? The only explanation is that 4-5 DL will be committing soon in the '19 class.

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I think it's pretty obvious that our coaching staff had some higher priority targets tell them they were signing with Bama, only to be spurned at the last minute on NSD (hence why they turned away certain players that we wish we could get now).

I agree with what someone said earlier. The ESD is going to force Saban and co. to be more aggressive in taking commitments from players earlier than normal because slow playing kids like we do most years in hopes of landing higher rated prospects can leave you empty handed like what happened this year.

Hopefully, this younger staff will be able to close a little better next year as well. We shall see.