Alabama is atop the national recruiting rankings after the opening day of college football’s early signing period, and coach Nick Saban said the Crimson Tide are far from finished.
“We do have additional numbers to take guys, so don’t do your calculations and scare off everybody else that we’re going to recruit for February,” Saban said late Wednesday afternoon in a news conference. “We do have spots left, and there are good players out there who we’re very much interested in and are interested in us.
“We’ve satisfied a lot of needs on our team, and I think we did a good job early on with a lot of players.”
The Tide announced 22 signees Wednesday, including a whopping 18 who are ranked among ESPN’s top 300 players. The 22 signees hail from 10 states: Alabama (six signees), Florida (three), Georgia (three), Maryland (three), New Jersey (two), Illinois (one), Kentucky (one), Louisiana (one), Mississippi (one) and Texas (one).
Every signee is either a four- or five-star talent with the exception of three-star kicker Will Reichard of the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, who is rated as the top kicking prospect nationally by ESPN, Rivals.com and in the 247Sports.com composite rankings.
“This is as talented and as well-rounded of a class as Nick Saban has ever signed,” ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill said.
Alabama’s signee list did not include five-star prospect Trey Sanders from IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. The 6-foot, 214-pound running back committed Wednesday afternoon to the Tide over Florida and Georgia, but he had not been announced as a signee as of Wednesday evening.
Sanders made his announcement on ESPNU before laying out an ambitious agenda for the months ahead.
“As a freshman at Alabama, I do plan on winning the Heisman and nothing less,” Sanders said. “If I come up short, I will be a finalist. I will be in New York next year, and I’m looking forward to it.
“I’m planning on coming in and playing early. I’m going to go in and give it my all, and I’m planning on winning the national championship, too.”
Alabama’s signees list includes a pair of in-state quarterbacks with notable ties to the storied program. Alabaster’s Taulia Tagovailoa is the younger brother of Tua Tagovailoa, the hero of last season’s national championship game and this year’s Heisman Trophy runner-up, while Trussville’s Paul Tyson is the great-grandson of legendary Tide coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
“We should have at least four quarterbacks on scholarship, and five is OK, too,” Saban said, referencing the impending decision facing junior Jalen Hurts, who received his diploma this past Saturday. “We’re kind of in that ballpark.”
The Tide signed five offensive linemen, five linebackers, four defensive backs and three defensive linemen, with Saban noting there will be losses from this current team in those areas. Alabama is still addressing losing six defensive backs off last year’s team and had a mixed result Wednesday, flipping former Ohio State safety commitment Jordan Battle but losing one of its own safety commitments, Daxton Hill, to Michigan.
Alabama posted seven consecutive No. 1 signing classes from 2011 to 2017, but the Tide finished fifth nationally in the 2018 recruiting cycle behind Georgia, Ohio State, Texas and Southern California. The 2018 cycle was the first with an early signing period, with Saban admitting he learned from the initial time around.
“We figured out that we needed to get ahead on more players, because more players are going to make this their signing date,” Saban said. “I think we lost some relationships last year because of the coaching changes we had, and we’ve been more aggressive this year.
“This has become the signing day, just like we all predicted. It’s not the early signing day. It’s the signing day.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.