Nick Saban: The 'proof is in the pudding' in current age of recruiting

During a recent sit-down interview with Fox’s college football expert Joel Klatt, Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban had a few things to get off his chest. One of the things Saban challenged the college football expert on was the notion of evaluating recruiting classes. The Crimson Tide headman scoffed at the idea and gave his own spin on it.

“Well, the whole idea of evaluating recruiting classes; if you had a litter of puppy dogs, how would you sit there and look at them and say which ones are going to be the best dogs and which ones of them aren’t? Which one of those are going to be the best hunting dog? I don’t know, and I don’t know who’s making those evaluations. So how accurate is it? Because, really, the proof is in the pudding once the players get here,” said Saban.

“The focus has to be on their development and what do they develop into. And that’s what we try to stay focused on. And I always wonder does it enhance somebodies recruiting evaluation if they get recruited by the Alabamas, Georgias, and Texas to the world. Or how does that work? I have never ever quite figured that out.”

For Saban, he is ultimately looking at the level of talent an individual possesses, not so much their recruiting class ranking. To him, you won’t know the overall level of capability of a player until you see what they can do on the practice field and during game time. While the evaluations of recruiting class rankings can be used as a measuring stick to some extent, it does not provide the whole picture of who the athlete is and what they will become.

Still, it’s not as if Saban is utterly naive to the idea of recruiting class rankings. He just happens to look at things in a different light. But one of the things Saban highlighted what is the benefit it provides to college football media outlets and their experts. And it wouldn’t be the Alabama headman if he didn’t get a little ribbing in at the expense of Klatt and the rest of the media world.

“It’s certainly great for you all to be able to have a recruiting service that you can talk about for two hours and rank and rate people and make predictions and all that. And you don’t have to live with the consequences or anything. It’s just a lot of fun.”