Gets me about recruiting these days, and I have been watching this program since the late 70s when Coach Bryant was still roaming the sideline. We used to build relationships, man. Coach would go sit in a living room in some small Alabama town and talk to a kid's mama for three hours about nothing but life and football. That is how you got a commitment that meant something. That kid was not going anywhere. He was Alabama through and through.
Now look at what we got. Oregon has five 5-stars in one class and I am supposed to be impressed? Back in the 1992 season when we had Antonio Langham and that defense, we did not need a bunch of stars next to names. We needed kids who wanted to hit somebody. We needed kids who understood what it meant to put on that crimson jersey and run out of the tunnel at Bryant-Denny. You cannot buy that with NIL money and you cannot find it in the transfer portal.
I see the 247 composite rankings and we are sitting there hoping to crack the top 15 while these programs out west are stacking talent like it is a grcery list. But let me tell you something. Remember the 1994 squad that won the SEC championship? We had guys who were three-star recruits who turned into All-SEC players because they were developed. They were coached. They were held accountable. Now every kid with a 40-yard dash time thinks he deserves a bag before he has ever taken a snap in college.
The old way worked. You recruited the state of Alabama first. You offered the kids who grew up wanting to be here. You did not have to worry about them hopping in the portal after one bad practice or because another school offered a better NIL deal. Coach Stallings, Coach Bryant, they built programs on loyalty and hard work. Now it is just a bidding war and I am tired of it.