For more than a decade Alabama football has been college football’s recruiting leader. No other school has come close to the Crimson Tide in No. 1 classes. Only four times in the last 13 signing classes has the Crimson Tide been lower than No. 1 or No. 2. Those ‘weaker’ classes were No. 3 in 2008 and 2009, No. 4 in 2010 and No. 5 in 2018. The other eight signing classes were No. 1, including seven straight from 2011-2017.
Nick Saban made Alabama football a recruiting juggernaut despite the state of Alabama not having a population base to compete with larger states like Texas, California and Florida.