Randy Smith
For the fourth time in the last five years, the University of Alabama has claimed the “mythical” national recruiting title, according to rivals.com. Going further in heaping praise on Crimson Tide Head Coach Nick Saban, was recruiting guru Tom Lemming, who said, “He’s the best in the country at recruiting.” They may have something. In the five years Saban has coached in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has the four recruiting titles to go along with the much more important two BCS National Championships.
While Saban will never win enough games or titles to replace Bear Bryant, he will at least cause a few friendly arguments among the Tide faithful.
Alabama signed three five-star recruits according to rivals.com. The five-star players are the best of the crop. The ones every big name school in the country wants to have on their team next fall. They are the ones making their commitments known on national television, sometimes in front of their mommas and daddies, Aunt Rosie and about thirty other relatives and friends. They already have an entourage of people to go anywhere they go, even to school when classes start. Five-star players are also more apt to fail. Bryce Brown, the top running back prospect in the country when he signed with Lane Kiffen at Tennessee is one. There are others, but most coaches really do not pay a lot of attention to how many stars are beside a player’s name when they are being recruited.
Current Tennessee Head Coach Derek Dooley said when he was putting together his first recruiting class two years ago, he doesn’t pay attention to the stars, he is recruiting good young men with character. He would rather have a lot of fours and threes that will work hard, than the five-star kids who are all about “me”. The Vols turned in a 17th ranked recruiting class for 2012, which was really good considering where the “Legions of the miserable” had placed them.(**Legions of the miserable was the term former Head Coach Johnny Majors used to refer to the negative “naysayers” around the Tennessee program.**)With Texas A&M joining the league this fall, the Vols are ranked sixth in the SEC.
If you think signing five-star recruits automatically means you will have a lot of wins, think again. Virginia Tech is ranked 21st in this year’s rankings, with no five stars, while Boise State, the winningest team in the country over the last five years is not ranked in the top 50, and they’ve signed just one four-star player in the past two years. West Virginia, the team that throttled Clemson 70-33 in the Orange Bowl was ranked 47th in 2012, with just one four star player signed. Some teams are actually winning with mediocre at best recruiting classes.
The bottom line is this; while recruiting is a great thing to follow if you’re a college football fan, it means nothing when trying to translate into victories. Alabama is winning big in recruiting and on the field. But coaching is the biggest key element, and there is none better than Nick Saban. In the last twenty years, recruiting has changed so much, because of the great advances in technology; more and better cameras, and video on the internet. Now coaches can watch and evaluate players on the internet and never have to leave their office. Close association with high school coaches is still important, but not nearly as crucial as it was before. Things have really changed since Coach Bryant was coaching at Alabama, but some college coaches today are still using his simple philosophy; “When we have a good team, I know it’s because we have boys who come from good mommas and poppas.”
Contact Randy Smith at rsmithsports@comcast.net
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Randy Smith has been covering sports in Tennessee for the last 42 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has continued his broadcasting career as a free-lance play-by-play announcer, author and is also a media concepts teacher at Red Bank High School in Chattanooga. He is currently teaching an "Intro To Sportscasting" class at Red Bank, the only class of its type in Tennessee.
Randy Smith's career has included a 17-year stint as scoreboard host and pre-game talk show host on the widely regarded "Vol Network". He has also done play by play of more than 500 college football, basketball, baseball and softball games on ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, CSS and Tennessee Pay Per View telecasts. He was selected as "Tennessee's Best Sports Talk Show Host" in 1998 by the Associated Press. He has won other major awards including, "Best Sports Story" in Tennessee and his "Friday Night Football" shows on WRCB-TV twice won "Best Sports Talk Show In Tennessee" awards. He has also been the host of "Inside Lee University Basketball" on CSS for the past 10 years.
Randy and his wife, Shelia, reside in Hixson. They have two married children (Christi and Chris Perry Davey and Alison Smith). They also have one grandchild (Coleman).