Nick Saban Develops The Talent He Recruits To Play For The Crimson Tide
In his time at Alabama, Saban and staff have signed a whopping 33 five-star recruits and a wipe-your-eyes-am-I-reading-this-correctly 134 four-star recruits.
Every single player in the 2016 class is either a three-star, four-star or five-star recruit.
But the secret to Saban’s success at Alabama goes beyond recruiting. It’s coaching. Saban can, as goes an old adage in sports, “coach ’em when he gets ’em.”
That is the most important thing, because you can get good players but if they are not “coached up,” and improve, then that team won’t be winning any championships.
Texas is a prime example of top recruiting classes failing to perform on the field. So, too, is Auburn. And Texas A&M. That’s just to name three programs; college sports is littered with teams who had coaches who could recruit but not develop their talent.
Saban and his staff – even with multiple changes – are able to turn its top recruits into top players. And top NFL draft picks.
Rolando McClain, Julio Jones, Mark Barron, Mark Ingram, CJ Mosley, TJ Yeldon, Derrick Henry, Reggie Ragland and, well, the list of accomplished recruits who became great players at Alabama could reach to the moon.
A far better barometer than recruiting classes in determining the next National Championship contenders is who is coaching the teams that are getting those top recruits.
So the next few years, expect to see Alabama (again), Ohio State, Clemson and Michigan in the mix for the College Football Playoff.
On the second tier is Florida State, Florida, LSU (if the Tigers could ever get a quarterback, they would be at Alabama’s level) and, perhaps, Georgia.
Texas is to be determined, as is Ole Miss which seems to burn out late in the year, and keep an eye on Tennessee if Butch Jones ever figures out that in order to win, you must play to win rather than not to lose.
So it’s more than players that win titles, it’s what the coaches do with the players they get on National Signing Day.
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