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

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If early returns are indicative of Dunbar, we can be extremely happy with the evaluation/development.

Granted, he may have not spotted Raewkon or Quinnen, but both guys look like beasts and future very high round draft picks. The proof will come when they hit the field, but so far, the development sounds like an A+. Even 57 year old Jamar King, who was looking like a bust, is beginning to show a lot of promise in practice.


And really early indications look like all 3 of our new DL signees are ready to play. Buggs looks like he'll be a monster at some point THIS year. Ray looks like the 5* we all thought he would be. And Mathis has lost 25 pounds, and looks MUCH further along than we thought he'd be as a true freshman.

Again, it's still really early - I mean 4/6 of them still haven't seen the field yet in an actual game - and he didn't identify or wasn't responsible for every one of these signees. But just from the development and evaluation aspects so far, Dunbar has appeared to have done superbly.

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Where would he project at Bama?

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Alabama targeting former LSU CB Saivion Smith

Saivion Smith is already thinking about the environment of his next college football game. Smith played his freshman season at LSU, where Tiger Stadium holds more than 100,000 fans on game day. His next game may have fewer than 100 times that amount.

“It’s definitely a humbling experience,” Smith told SEC Country about his transfer from LSU to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. “I’m going from having 102,000 people at games to like, maybe, 1,000 or 2,000 at the most. That’s going to be an adjustment. There’s also not much out here. It’s forcing me to focus, and I like that.”

Smith, a former 5-star prospect at IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.), transferred from LSU to MGCCC in June for “personal and family reasons,” he said. He wouldn’t go deeper than that. Smith was expected to be a contributor for the Tigers this season and crack the team’s two-deep depth chart.

The 6-foot-2, 195-pound prospect said he doesn’t regret signing with LSU and still believes it was the best place for him coming out of high school. He still communicates with Tigers defensive backs Kevin Toliver and Kristian Fulton every day and is in a group text with several more LSU players.

When Smith told coach Ed Orgeron his plans to transfer, he said the coach supported his decision and wished him well.

“He understood what was going on with me,” Smith said. “He was behind me 100 percent. I know he just wanted the best for me. He was one of my main recruiters coming out of high school, along with [defensive backs coach] Corey Raymond. Coach O wanted nothing but the best for me.”

Now that he’s a recruit again, Smith said he’s only aware of two offers thus far: Alabama and South Carolina. He’s not favoring either school at the moment and laughed and said, “Well, because I only have two offers, both schools have a 50-50 shot at landing my commitment.”

Alabama offered Smith earlier this week. The Crimson Tide were recruiting him coming out of high school, but the Tigers were always considered the strong favorite before he committed and signed with them.

The Alabama coaching staff had been in contact with Smith and the Mississippi Gulf Coast coaching staff a week prior to him receiving an offer. Smith talked with Alabama coach Nick Saban, who was the one to present him the scholarship offer.

“He thinks I would have a really good opportunity at Alabama to play early,” Smith said. “They’re going to be losing three or four cornerbacks after this season. Trevon Diggs will be the only one left. The chance to play is there.”

Cornerback is arguably Alabama’s top priority in the 2018 class after signing zero at the position in 2017. The team will lose Anthony Averett, Tony Brown and likely Minkah Fitzpatrick after this season. In the 2016 class, Alabama signed defensive backs Shyheim Carter, Nigel Knott, Jared Mayden and Aaron Robinson.

Knott is the only boundary corner out of the group. Robinson was, but he decided to transfer. Cornerback depth is a glaring issue heading into next season.

“That helps Alabama a lot,” Smith said. “I want to go to a place that I can play immediately and has a great coaching staff. I definitely want to go to a place that I can compete for a national championship and have my talents showcased in front of NFL coaches and scouts.”

Smith is now one of the team’s top cornerback targets in the 2018 class along with Tyson Campbell, Josh Jobe and Patrick Surtain Jr. Smith said Saban told him that he can commit to the team whenever he wants. It’s likely that Alabama will still evaluate him this season at MGCCC, though. Smith isn’t sure when he’ll make a commitment to his school of choice, but it will be before the end of the year as he’s a December graduate.

When that time comes, Alabama will certainly be a finalist.

“I love how much Alabama wins and how they compete for national championships pretty much every year since I’ve been paying attention to college football,” Smith said. “They are one of the top-tier teams. I like what Nick Saban has done there. I know he came from LSU and won them a national championship. I also like how Nick Saban coaches the DBs there. That’s definitely a plus.”

The junior college prospect will have two years of eligibility remaining when he transfers to an FBS school this January. He’s already thought of the idea of playing against LSU.

“We played Alabama last year on my birthday,” Smith said. “The game is usually around then every year, so I always think about that. But if I was to go to Alabama and play against LSU, I would just treat it like every other game. But, it would be really crazy to play against my former teammates.”

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IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., has been controversial since season its inaugural football season in 2013. But love it or hate it, the program has produced some very talented players in its four seasons. Here’s our first-team all-defense from the academy.

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DEFENSIVE BACKS

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Safety Saivion Smith

The skinny: Smith totaled 110 tackles, seven tackles for a loss and five interceptions during his two seasons at IMG. While he committed to LSU nearly a year before his National Signing Day, and while rumors occasionally swirled that he may have been looking at other schools, he never seriously wavered on his pledge. Smith saw playing time in the last seven games of his true freshman season, but then abruptly decided to transfer in late May. He will play this fall at Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C. before transferring to a four-year program for the spring semester.

Farrell’s Take: Smith started off as a five-star cornerback but struggled in outside coverage many times when we saw him so we moved him to safety and dropped him to four-stars. I feel that was the right ranking because he’s much better working the middle of the field, tracking the ball and coming up and hitting. Time will tell what position he ends up playing, but he had a very good career at IMG. He will rebound and impact somewhere.

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Like Magilla said, Brent Key is Miller's primary recruiter, not Dunbar. Is that a mistake? Maybe. 

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New recruiting rules will allow recruits to sign their national letter of intent during a three-day window starting Dec. 20, which has some prospects excited and some still leery of the ramifications of signing early.

Prior to this rule, the first Wednesday in February was the earliest recruits could sign with their schools, which has traditionally made the end of December and the entire month of January a free-for-all, a mad dash to the finish line with decommitments and flips as coaches try to fill their classes.

In the 2016 class, from Dec. 20 through the month of January before signing day, 224 FBS recruits either decommitted or flipped their commitments to other schools. In the 2017 class, during the same time period, 238 prospects changed their commitment status.

This new rule could alter that number drastically depending on how many recruits sign in December, which would lock them in to schools.

I spoke to 76 recruits ranked in the top 150 of the ESPN 300 rankings, and 44 said they had plans to sign in December. With four months until that signing period begins, these opinions could change.

Among the 44 who said they plan to sign early were five-stars K.J. Henry, Terrace Marshall Jr., Brenton Cox, Justin Shorter and Xavier Thomas.

“My personal opinion about that is the recruits that actually sign early like me, in December, are the mature recruits because they don’t want all the recruiting games and they know where they’re going and want to lock that in,” Thomas, a Clemson commit, said. “But then again, there are some recruits who actually don’t know where they’re going, which is why they wouldn’t sign early. Most know where they’re going, but want all the recruiting hype and fun, so they play around with it. So for the recruits signing early, it shows they are real commits and not entertaining any other schools.”

Of the five-stars who said they are planning on enrolling early, all but Marshall are currently committed. That is a big part of the equation as to who is planning on enrolling early and why.

“I’m making sure the coaches stay intact before I put my name on paper,” uncommitted ESPN 300 prospect Tommy Bush said. “No sir, I’m signing in February.”

Bush shares the sentiment with quite a few other uncommitted prospects who have concerns about signing early.

Coaches have concerns of their own, but are going to have to learn to navigate this new rule quickly. Penn State coach James Franklin believes there should be some modifications to the rule and says he is worried that the NCAA is looking for the perfect system that isn’t there.

“The model I love from the beginning for the official visits and the early signing is you only early sign the kid that doesn’t want to go on any other visits,” Franklin said. “That’s saying, I’m going to Penn State, I was always going to Penn State, I want to sign and I don’t need official visits to do it. To me, that helps everybody out because now school X isn’t wasting their time recruiting the kid that’s always coming to Penn State.

“I think that was a really good model, but it didn’t happen. That would have been a good way to do it for early signing.”

This class is somewhat of a guinea pig with the new rule as each side is exploring how it will work. With every new rule change, there are bound to be pitfalls. Coaches and recruits still have concerns and questions, but the date is rapidly approaching.

With 57 percent of the top recruits who responded saying they plan on enrolling early, there could be a ton of action in the new signing period.

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Harold Joiner is a sneakerhead. That's why this fall, Joiner plans to turn heads with his rushing antics and stylish cleats.

Jones plans to showcase his white cleats for Mountain Brook's home games and black cleats for road games, complete with gold chrome trim.

"They have my number and my name on the back, it's pretty nice," said Joiner, whose fashion flare is surpassed only by the back flips the 6-foot-3, 225-pound running back showed off on Twitter.

For decades, teenagers collected sports trading cards and autographs from their idols, everything from signed balls to bobbleheads and posters. Today, as Joiner enters his final season at Mountain Brook, he is a modern-day collector, able to appreciate the beauty of a sport full of colliding artistry and fashion which offers a glimpse into personalities beyond facemasks.

Please forgive Joiner, ranked No. 6 on AL.com's A-List, the ranking of the state's top senior football prospects, for not allowing opponents to get a good, up-close view of his cleats. No, this sneakerhead plans to keep moving, keeping pushing, keep pump, pump, pumping his legs all the way to the end zone, all the way to his college of choice.

Joiner said he has plenty to prove before leaving Alabama high school football, and he's ready to do it. In style, of course.

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