Alabama Football: 5 reasons to be optimistic about 2019 season

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MIAMI, FL – DECEMBER 29: Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide reacts against the Oklahoma Sooners during the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium on December 29, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /

4. Recruiting has been great

A big part of being successful in college football is recruiting and then getting those players to play out to what they did at the high school level. Many coaches have perfected the recruiting, but struggle with the translation of skills. As an Aggie fan myself, I saw that with Kevin Sumlin. Many times great recruiting classes would come through only to not live up to billing — Myles Garrett notwithstanding, of course.

With Alabama, that isn’t an issue. These guys enroll early, or at least the majority of them do, and the coaching staff is great at making sure those guys live up to their star ranking — or even beyond that. This recruiting cycle, Alabama has the top ranked class in the SEC and in the nation. They were able to grab three five-stars in running back Trey Sanders, defensive end Antonio Alfano and offensive tackle Evan Neal. They had 23 four-star recruits and one three-star recruit. Numbers like that earn you the top class in the nation.

An example of guys they have gotten to the big time? Julio Jones and Amari Cooper. Jones was a five star recruit out of high school. Cooper was a four star. Both have grown and are now big time players for their respective SEC teams. A more recent guy? Calvin Ridley who had his rookie year with the Arizona Cardinals a season ago. He was also a five-star guy.

Simply put, Alabama has depth and that is helped out by their strength in recruiting. The recruiting for the 2019 cycle was great and has a couple of guys who will make an immediate impact.

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