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

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To no one's surprise, Alabama opened preseason No. 1 in Monday's initial AP Top 25 release, the second consecutive season the three-time defending SEC champs were voted top dog in August.

But not all voters tabbed the Crimson Tide as the team to beat in college football.

Longtime Gainesville Sun columnist Pat Dooley pegged Alabama fourth, easily the lowest ranking for Nick Saban's team among 61 total ballots.

Paul Finebaum asked Dooley about his off-the-wall pick on Monday's radio show.

"Well, umm, I will say this, the winner of the Florida State-Alabama game will probably be No. 1 in my second week's poll," Dooley said, partially skating the question. "I'm not one of these stats guys where you stack them and whoever loses, you move everybody up one. To me, that would easily be the most impressive win of the year, whoever wins.

"I like Ohio State. Ohio State has a really good team. Any of those top four teams I think could be tossed around."

Alabama received 52 of a possible 61 first-place votes in Monday's poll. The Crimson Tide, a 7.5-point favorite over the Seminoles in the seismic opener, should be the betting favorite in every game this season.

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Defensive lineman Coynis Miller, No. 3 on AL's A-List, an annual ranking of Alabama's top senior football prospects, enters his senior season at Jackson-Olin ready to rumble his way to touchdowns from the Wildcat quarterback position and on defense - his primary position - cause havoc at and around the line of scrimmage.

Such efforts would immortalize Miller's legacy at the school. He sure has come a long way from daydreaming about football in elementary school; walking down the street with weights; learning how to compete after transferring to Jackson-Olin.

His football journey started modestly in Decatur, Georgia, when he was still in elementary school.

One summer, every morning around 5 a.m., Miller and his cousin and best friend, Anthony Mason, started their mile run to the park. The boys would spend the early morning working out and later in the day, play basketball before returning home around 7 p.m.

"We just did it. We got up at that time," Miller said. "Like, we heard that the great players woke up early to get work in, so we figured we should get started (early).

Miller was a fifth-grader, his friend a sixth-grader.

It's what today's high school players call grinding. Miller and Mason had noting but with a 30-pound dumbbell, which they carried the dumbbell down the road, jumped with it in their grasp, whatever exercises they could think of to place them closer to their mission of making a future out of sports.

"We were getting it from a young age," Miller said. "All the older guys would tell us, 'Y'all going to be something one day.' "

That day is here.

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