Gets me about these Future Power Rankings ESPN just put out? They are trying to project winners through 2027 based on recruiting classes and portal hauls and I just sit here thinking about the 1992 season when we went into that Sugar Bowl against Miami and nobody had us ranked number one in any preseason anything. We just lined up and played football. That team had guys like John Copeland and Eric Curry who came here because Coach Stallings built something real, not because somebody promised them a bag of cash and a depth chart guarantee.
Now you look at what recruiting has become and it is just a business transaction. I see these lists of five-star kids spread across every program in the country and NIL is leveling the playing field they say. Leveling it right into the ground if you ask me. Back when Coach Bryant was still on the sideline we did not have recruiting services telling every 17-year-old kid he is the next Derrick Thomas. We had position coaches driving through the Mississippi Delta on a Tuesday night to watch a kid play in a mud bowl and shake his daddy's hand on the front porch. That was how you built a prorgam. That was how you got a guy like Cornelius Bennett who could have gone anywhere but chose to sit under Coach Bryant's system and become a legend.
I am not saying the kids today are bad players. I am saying the way we get them is broken. You used to watch a junior film, call his high school coach, ask about his character, and then you offered him a scholarship that meant something. He knew if he came to Tuscaloosa he was gonna work harder than he ever worked in his life and he was gonna play in front of 100,000 people who loved him for four years. Now you got kids committing to three different schools before signing day and flipping for a better NIL deal the week before they enroll. That is not recruiting. That is free agency in July.
The portal killed the idea of building something over time. You used to recruit a class of 22 kids, redshirt half of them, develop them for three years, and then watch them become leaders as seniors. Now you got offensive linemen transferring in for spring practice and leaving before the summer dead period because they did not like their competition in the weight room. We have revamped our whole O-line through the portal this offseason and I know it makes us better on paper but I cannot help wondering what happened to the days when a guy like Chris Samuels showed up as a freshman, got his tail whipped in practice for two years, and then became an Outland Trophy winner. You cannot buy that kind of development with a revenue-sharing check.
I will probably get shouted down for saying this but I do not care. The Future Power Rankings might show us sitting pretty through 2027 and the recruiting rankings might have us in the top five every year but none of it means a thing if the kids do not stay long enough to learn what it actually means to play for Alabama. That is someth...