Bama strikes gold again with Taylor

Bama adds a road block on defensive side of the ball...

The top Juco Conernback
said yes on Thrusday
Travell Dixon

Today Alponse Talyor jumps

     Alabama signs one of the most coveted offensive lineman in America. He is 6-6 and weighs in at 350 pounds. 35 major schools wanted him to play offensive tackle. Only one school, Alabama, wanted him to play nose tackle. So today, Alphonse Taylor, who played at Davidson High School said “yes” to the University of Alabama. That meant he had to say no to FSU. And another one bites the dust. Here is another kid who thought it over, and believed that playing one man wrecking crew or human log jam was just what he wanted to do. Most services have him rated at 4 stars. Rivals has it at 3 stars. Nick Saban gave him his personal star and that’s could enough for me.

The beat the goes on. If you are a coach in the SEC and someone suggests a field trip to the Little Big Horn just say no. That battlefield is coming to you in the near future. The outcome will be exactly the same, but you can avoid all those Motel 6 hot spots. For the Tide it is just another piece of what is turning into a monster recruiting class. This is really getting silly. This class is starting to resemble Godzilla and every campus is looking more like Tokyo as each day passes.

From what I have been told that best is yet to come. Is that even possible? These last few commitments have involved a couple of kids who had committed elsewhere, and then picked the Tide. I guess it is a lot like going into outer space. You could choose the Albanian Space program but NASA is an excellent choice.

                          These kids all have several things in common:

1. They are great players according to people in the know;

2. These kids want to play for a winner;

3. They use their heads to make decisions;

4. They must all believe that the best indicator of future success is past success.

5. Or they all like Dreamland more than we could ever believe.

All this ‘Bama success gives rise to understanding what the old salt “the rich getter richer and the poor get poorer”. Once again Texas is right at the top of the recruiting reports, and then comes the SEC - Alabama, LSU, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, South Carolina, and then Georgia are all top twenty classes according to Rivals. Those are just the top ten and top twenty ranked classes. By the time you get to through the top thirty you understand why the SEC is always in the BCS game, and why they are so darned tough once they get there.

All this reminds me of when a man named Bear Bryant was at Alabama. Bryant got who he wanted, took most of what you wanted, and didn’t bother with all the messy details in between the two. The reduced scholorship rule was supposed to level the playing field. I don’t think that has happened, although it probably did give rise to Boise State type program. It might make it possible for Temple to be competitive. But let’s talk top of the food chain - the more things change the more they stay the same. Years ago I said that things would change very little because top programs will spend what it takes to remain on top including paying for the best coaching staffs possible. That is what has happened.


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