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

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I'm tempted to say that Jalen should move to an H-Back/TE role. He has the strength and build for it. Jordan Reed pulled the same thing at the same height. Recruited as a QB and moved to TE.

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How Tua Tagovailoa wound up at Alabama

You can’t begin a story about how Tagovailoa wound up at Alabama without mentioning Jake Fromm and Kirby Smart. Without them, Tagovailoa likely would’ve been at Southern California.

Smart was officially hired by Georgia on Dec. 7, 2016. Exactly one week later, Smart offered Fromm, who was committed to Alabama. Fromm always wanted to play for Georgia, but he never had the opportunity to do so because Mark Richt didn’t offer him.

Richt preferred Florida State quarterback Bailey Hockman, who was committed to Georgia. SEC Country was told that when Hockman was offered by Georgia, he had a 7-day window to commit to the Bulldogs, otherwise Richt was going to move on to Fromm. Hockman committed on the sixth day, so Fromm wasn’t going to have his opportunity to play at Georgia.

Once Smart took over for Richt, he prioritized Fromm immediately. One of the first calls he made was to Alabama’s quarterback commit. Fromm eventually flipped from the Tide to the Bulldogs on March 3, 2016. Five days later, Alabama offered Tagovailoa.

How realistic of a chance Alabama actually had at pulling Tagovailoa from Hawaii was always a question throughout his recruitment, even after he committed to the Tide. Before Alabama offered, Tagovailoa considered Southern Cal to be his dream school. The Trojans were his leader for more than a year.

A week after the Tide offer, Tagovailoa released his top 8 schools, and Alabama made the cut. He told SEC Country why he included Alabama on his list.

“Coach Saban has talked to us and his beliefs are God first before anything,” Tagovailoa said back in March 2016. “Every school is going to have good academics. Every school is going to have good football. But when you have a coach like Saban, who believes in God and is a defending champion, that makes it even more special.”

A month later, the Tagovailoa family made a visit to three SEC schools: Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss. He spent several days in Tuscaloosa, and that’s when it became a realistic possibility for him to commit to the Tide. Alabama was the behind-the-scenes leader right after that visit.

Some people may wonder how a Samoan kid from Hawaii could fit into the Alabama culture. But he embraced it immediately.

“You can’t really lose yourself if you’re a kid from Hawaii going to Alabama,” Tagovailoa said when he committed. “Things down here in Hawaii are similar to Alabama. We go to church every Sunday. People are treated like family there just like here. There are many similarities there and you want to be somewhere that feels like home, and that’s what Alabama feels like.”

Tagovailoa never visited any school after committing to Alabama in May 2016. He did listen to other schools, though, because there was some reservation on going to a school that had a true freshman quarterback in Jalen Hurts, who led the team to a title game appearance last year.

He talked to LSU some in the final weeks of his recruitment and toyed around with the possibility of visiting Baton Rouge. The family decided that there just wasn’t enough time to seriously consider any other school because he was an early enrollee.

Tagovailoa arrived in Tuscaloosa on Jan. 8, 2017. Exactly one year later, he became an Alabama legend.

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How Alex Leatherwood wound up at Alabama

Star left tackle Jonah Williams went down with a leg injury in the third quarter. No problem for Alabama because it had Leatherwood, a 5-star tackle on the roster. He stepped right in and didn’t lose a beat.

Here’s what SEC Country commentator Mike Johnson, a former Alabama All-American, had to say about Leatherwood’s performance:

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Mike Johnson @MPJohnson79

It will be lost in the Tua talk today but Alex Leatherwood played like a grown arse man against an incredible group of pass rushers last night. True freshman left tackle thrown into the fire after the Williams injury and played at an elite level. Bright future.

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Alabama almost didn’t have Leatherwood on its roster. The Crimson Tide were a couple of hours away from losing him, even though he had been committed to the team for more than a year.

Leatherwood was arguably the most outspoken commitment the team had in the 2017 class. He, along with VanDarius Cowan, were the team’s best peer recruiters. But, behind the scenes, Leatherwood wasn’t as solid to Alabama as he was portraying. He had a legitimate interest in Florida, the school that almost flipped him in the end.

The Pensacola, Fla., native ended up visiting Tampa for the Outback Bowl, a game that featured Florida, in January 2017. Leatherwood’s plan was to drive from Tampa to Gainesville after the game and start the enrollment process at UF. Word got out on social media that Leatherwood was in the stands. The Alabama coaching staff found out he was there because of that. The coaches started to frantically panic over the possibility of losing a potential anchor to the offensive line. They got him to listen to one last recruiting pitch by Saban, and that was that.

He enrolled at Alabama in January and won a national championship ring while Florida was a disaster and fired Jim McElwain.

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