1. Hitting the ceiling?
Now that Alabama has landed yet another recruiting national championship, maybe it’s time to look at an underlying pertinent question:
Why haven’t the Tide won more?
As ridiculous as that initially sounds — considering no one has been more consistent since 2008 than the Tide — it’s also not as far off base as you’d think. If your program consistently lands the best class in the nation (four in a row according to some services, and six of seven), how does it not translate to more championships on the field?
Alabama’s SEC title in 2014 was its third since 2007 under coach Nick Saban, the architect of all things recruiting in Tuscaloosa. That’s three in eight years (along with three national titles); an impressive run, yes, but does it match up with a program that wins recruiting title over and over and over?
“I don’t want to minimize what Nick and his staff have accomplished,” said one Power 5 coach, “but if we won six recruiting national titles, we’d have won a few national titles, too.”
Last July, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier publicly questioned the state of the Tide program when he said, “if you had the No. 1 recruiting class every year and so forth, I don’t know if (Saban) has maxed out potentially as well as he could.”
Alabama lost this year in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, ending the SEC’s eight-year run of at least playing in the national championship game — wining seven straight from 2006-12.
Of the 24 recruits Alabama signed Wednesday, 20 were either 5- or 4-star players according to 247Sports.com. Six of those 20 were 5-star players, including tailback Damien Harris and cornerbacks Kendall Sheffield and Minkah Fitzpatrick.
The new group of freshmen will be thrown into a team that needs a quarterback and must get better on the defensive line and in the secondary. Immediate needs for a team that continues to recruit better than anyone else.
2. Last call
This is what happens when you’re completely free of NCAA probation (see: scholarship limitations) for the first time since a guy named Pete Carroll was around: you almost land the No. 1 class in the nation.
If you thought USC coach Steve Sarkisian’s top 10 recruiting haul last season with a month of work was impressive, check out what happened when he had a full year of work behind him.
The Trojans finished second in the 247Sports.com rankings (first in the Rivals.com), and landed 18 5- and 4-star players. All four 5-star players on the board on Wednesday committed with the Trojans: LB Porter Gustin, CB Iman Marshall, DT Rasheem Green, LB John Houston.
It’s not like USC hasn’t recruited this well since Carroll was winning national titles in recruiting and on the field. It’s just that the Trojans haven’t had the ability to recruit a full class every year.
A group like this, including 5-star quarterback Ricky Town, is a terrific start to get USC back to winning conference championships.
3. Count it down
For those who think the days of SEC dominance are over in college football, check out the 247Sports.com team rankings.
That’s three SEC teams in the top five (No. 1 Alabama, No. 4 Tennessee, No. 5 LSU), five in the top 10 (No. 9 Auburn, No. 10 Georgia), nine in the top 20 (No. 12 Texas A&M, No. 17 Ole Miss, No. 18 Mississippi State, No. 19 South Carolina) and 12 in the top 25 (No. 21 Florida, No. 23 Missouri, No. 24 Arkansas).
The final two teams in the SEC are at No. 38 (Kentucky) and No. 47 (Vanderbilt). That’s all 14 teams within the top 50 teams in the nation.
4. Moving forward
So here is Clemson, overlooked and undervalued in the college football landscape, yet taking another huge step toward forcing itself on the nation’s elite.
The Tigers had their most early enrollees (15) ever, and finished out a top five class Wednesday with some significant signings. But the biggest news revealed by coach Dabo Swinney has nothing to do with this year’s group: star QB Deshaun Watson is weeks ahead of rehabilitating his surgically repaired knee.
“He’s a month or two ahead of schedule,” Swinney said.
As important as elite recruits Ray-Ray McCloud III, Christian Wilkins and Deon Cain are to the future of the program, Clemson’s move to the nation’s elite revolves around Watson and his dynamic ability at the most important position on the field.
The Tigers have 42 wins over the last four years under Swinney (at least 10 wins every season), including some significant wins against a few of the nation’s heavyweights (LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma). They’ll start 2015 as the ACC favorite, and if Watson is healthy by Week 1, will be a legitimate threat to play in the College Football Playoff.
What happened on National Signing Day — Cain and McCloud are potential difference makers at wideout for Watson — can only help the process of moving to the nation’s elite.
5. Stock report
Winners and losers on National Signing Day:
Winners
Florida: Turned a disastrous class into a solid top 25 group. The key: former Miami coach (and current Gators co-defensive coordinator) Randy Shannon’s work in South Florida, where Florida landed seven players.
UCLA: But for USC’s huge day, the Bruins would be the story of the day outside of Alabama.
Tennessee: Had a winning season for only the second time in seven years, and landed a top five class. This class, as high as No.3 according to some services, was built on a five-win season from 2013. Butch Jones’ two classes at Tennessee have been top 10 material; how quickly can they develop?
Losers
Miami: Canes missed out on a number of key recruits over the last week, and signed a former 5-star recruit (Gerald Willis III) who was kicked off the Florida team last month. Not a good look.
TCU: No juice from this past season (usually classes are built from previous season), and no big pull on the final day of the process (DT Daylon Mack chose Texas A&M over TCU).
Michigan: Missed out on a couple of decisions on Wednesday, and new coach Jim Harbaugh never really got footing in such a short timeframe (three weeks). That will change significantly next February.
6. Beautiful day
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you perspective.
Moments after 5-star RB Soso Jamabo announced he would sign with UCLA over Texas, he sent out this jewel of a tweet:
Officially committed … Asian Girls Everywhere … UCLA.
Whatever Texas promised Jamabo of Plano, Texas, it apparently couldn’t stack up with the — ahem — scenery on the Westwood campus. That announcement was just the beginning for the Bruins, who pulled in a big class with some late signings including TE OT Chris Clark, OT Josh Wariboko (beat Oklahoma), LB Roquan Smith (beat Georgia) and WR Cordell Broadus (beat USC).
More impressive is the brand reach for UCLA, which landed players from Hawaii, Utah, Texas, Arizona and Georgia. The Bruins will again be behind rival USC in recruiting rankings, but this top 15 class is more than strong enough to help them extend the three-game winning streak over the Trojans.
7. The long road back
They lined up against Michigan State in the last game of last season with all of 41 scholarship players available to play.
That’s less than half of the NCAA maximum of 85.
Now you know what James Franklin walked into when he arrived at Penn State last season. Were it not for the job accomplished by Bill O’Brien in the first two years of NCAA sanctions, it could have been much worse last year — and this year.
O’Brien once told me 2014-15 were the years it would hit rock bottom at Penn State. That was before the NCAA caved in and restored scholarships and the postseason for the Lions — and before Franklin arrived and started recruiting like few imagined here.
Here’s a coach who arrived at Penn State in early January of 2014 and still landed a top 25 class — with scholarship reductions still intact. This time around, Franklin and his staff landed a top 15 class — a majority of which was already in place before the NCAA gave back the scholarships.
In fact, Franklin says the Lions still have “three or so” scholarships remaining that could be used over the next few days.
“There were guys out there that we wanted, but we had to pass on them because we didn’t have numbers,” Franklin said. “So this was our first full year, but it really wasn’t.”
Imagine what Penn State and Franklin can do with an entire recruiting season — and the NCAA nowhere near the program.