UAB: An Amazing Recruiting Story

Submitted by FormAFarkingWall on

We rarely hear about the programs that finish outside of the Top 30 rankings in recruiting, but this should be an exception.  University of Alabama - Birmingham, who for financial reasons did not play football this year and will not play in 2016 either, just signed a class ranked in the mid 60's. 

This is a class better than several P5 schools (looking at you Purdue), unfathomable considering they could offer no immediate playing time or even gameday experience to a single one of their 18 signees. 

I don't know much about their Head Coach, Bill Clark, but hats off to the man.  Amazing story and I know come 2017 who my second favorite team will be.   

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/02/uab_signs_one_of_conference_us.html

FrankMurphy

February 4th, 2016 at 5:05 PM ^

Purdue can lose every game from now through the end of time for all I care. Remember the way their no-class failure of a coach Danny Hope acted toward Rich Rod and all the negative recruiting he did against Michigan back then? And Joe Tiller with his "snake oil" accusation and asanine claims about a "gentleman's agreement"? Fuck Purdue.

True Blue Grit

February 4th, 2016 at 2:22 PM ^

players?  Are their facilities from the stone ages or do they just budget nothing for recruiting?  It seems like being in the middle of the Midwest and not far from Chicago, they'd be able to do better.  The amazing thing is every so often they put out some excellent player that does well in the NFL.  They've had a few very good D-linemen in recent years.  

Seth

February 4th, 2016 at 5:13 PM ^

They're in the middle of upgrading. Their problems are:

  1. They held onto a bad coach in Hazell when they should have cut bait. Now recruits know he's a dead man walking unless he turns it around this year, so why sign on to a program that wont' be there next year?
  2. They're among a handful of schools who really are serious about the academic profiles of their players.
  3. They're in West Lafayette, Indiana, a charmless rust belt town in Indiana
  4. They've been bad so long the kids today don't remember the last time they were relevant. The 2017 class wasn't even born when Drew Brees graduated.

bronxblue

February 4th, 2016 at 9:27 PM ^

Keeping Hazell feels a bit how teams keep trying to recreate Alabama by getting former assistant coaches of Saba, except Purdue thought they were getting Tressell, but with offense.  But my guess is if they win a couple of games this year and he keeps his team clean off the field, they'd consider keeping him again.  It really seems like Purdue doesn't want to spend money.

I know teams keep talking about academic character for their program, and Purdue definitely does care, but if Stanford, ND, and NW can put together consistently competitive teams, freaking Purdue can figure it out.  And it was years ago, but I remember reading somewhere that a bunch of their football players were enrolled in one particular type of engineeering which was basically the "football" major.  So I'm sure you have to be a decent student to play there, but they aren't rolling out ChemE's by the truckloads either.

The lack of recent success is probably the biggest reason; it's basically Drew Brees and Ryan Kerrigan as anything approximating stars in the NFL, and then the drop is pretty substantial.  I feel incredibly old thinking that I was in college for part of Drew Brees' career.

Thad_Castle

February 4th, 2016 at 12:58 PM ^

Thanks man, movie just came out a few days ago and was really good considering it was kickstarted. Not sure exactly how the sites do the rankings, I was under the impression that commits can only add to the overall class rankings so if two teams are identical in the class rankings and one adds a 2 star they would be ahead regardless of the number of recruits each has. Also not taking anything away from UAB about half of the 45 commits are 3 stars which is a lot for a school currently without a team.

goblueram

February 4th, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^

I remember when I got NCAA Gamebreaker 99, I would always play with UAB.  I think it was because they played fewer games or something and I could get through a season in one sitting since I had no capability to save the game.  

Pretty crazy that they recruited this well, but it really makes me wonder what the hell Purdue is doing.

MaizeJacket

February 4th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^

Volume probably helps, but good for them.  Bill Clark should get some sort of award for sticking through this situation.  He easily could have walked away to greener pastures from the people that screwed over the entire program, himself, and his staff, but he waited it out to return.  Not saying I'm going to become a new raging UAB fan but they are definitely a lot more interesting now than they were 4-5 years ago, so count me as someone that will be watching their games when I can.

Bambi

February 4th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^

It is a really cool story, but there are two main reasons why they're ranked so high. One is that they have no scholarship limits so they signed a class of 45. Even though rankings generally only rank your top 20 or so, when you have a class of 45 it's a lot easier to have 20 kids rated high enough to rank in the 60's.

The second is the more important reason, which is that they're class is almost entirely JUCOs. It makes sense as those guys are the better, more colleges ready players who can bring some leadership qualities and experience. But the rankings for JUCOs are a lot different, most of them are just generic three stars, so a class full of them will rank you in that 60s range. Something like 42/45 recruits in this class are JUCOs. And since JUCOs are generally recruited by fewer schools it's easier for UAB to sign a bunch, not to mention the appeal of immediate playing time.

It still is a cool story though. I'm really rooting for UAB to succeed.

Ali G Bomaye

February 4th, 2016 at 1:19 PM ^

You make a good point about the JUCO ratings, but some of those JUCOs are individually damn impressive.  For instance:

  • LB Clifton Garrett, former 5* LSU signee in 2014
  • RB Greg Bryant, former 5* Notre Dame signee in 2013
  • OG Brandon Hill, former 4* Alabama signee in 2013

LSAClassOf2000

February 4th, 2016 at 12:59 PM ^

It was rather a shame that UAB had to go away even though they have the unfortunate problem of being in the same state university system as the Crimson Tide and therefore never seemed to get the support they should have. It will be interesting to see how a football reboot goes in this day and age - has anything like this been done before in Division I (excluding, say, the late 19th century), where a football program gets axed and then later on returns?

NittanyFan

February 4th, 2016 at 1:20 PM ^

gave up football in the 1940s, but then re-booted in the late 2000s.  They seem to have a fairly bright future at the mid-major level ahead of them.

Georgia Southern gave up football in the 1940s then re-booted in 1981.  They quickly became a D-1AA power and now have moved up to the Sun Belt.

Two that I can think of off the top of my head.  Obviously, not perfectly analogous to UAB.

FrankMurphy

February 4th, 2016 at 1:45 PM ^

A lot of schools (particularly in the Western US) suspended their football programs during WWII. The University of Chicago brought back football in 1969, though not as a Division I school. Also, SMU (though that was a bit of a different case). There have been a few football programs that were either demoted or voluntarily moved from Division I to I-AA or II and later moved back up to Division I. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Marshall somehow managed to avoid suspending its football program after the tragic 1970 plane crash that killed 90% of its team and virtually its entire coaching staff (they got an exemption from the NCAA to move their freshmen up to the varsity team, which by rule could only include upperclassmen in those days).

FutureOfA2

February 4th, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^

Futher comparison in terms of ranking: UAB's #62 ranked class puts them ahead of Purdue, Illinois, and Rutgers. Additionally, Northwestern and Indiana both finished in the 50s, while Iowa and Minnesota finished 47 and 48. Each of those schools had at least 20 recruits as well (the benchmark number that goes into the national ranking). Understandable that UAB's class is almost entirely JUCOs, but still pretty impressive without a current program. Also, the Big Ten finished pretty lopsided in recruiting rankings.

Wolverine In Iowa 68

February 4th, 2016 at 1:25 PM ^

UAB started having good results and qualified for a bowl game.  The powers that be in Tuscaloosa couldn't have that, only Bama could be successful in the system, so they disbanded the team and blamed funding (but in truth, it was shown they could easily fund both teams).

The alumni ripped them apart over it.  So basically having to rebuild the team from nothing, they will need some really good classes to get to a point where they can field a team.  I wish them the best, they got shafted pretty hard.

Danwillhor

February 4th, 2016 at 1:58 PM ^

What team most underperformed this recruiting cycle? I can't start a thread from App and it's based on a thing my brother and I would do when simulating seasons in NCAA Football. After every cycle we'd scroll the lost to the end, cycle back and up and give verbal awards to the team that most underachieved and overachieved. Note: Not the team ranked last or first but, say, Illinois being #98 and Kansas being #25. Proportional to who you are/should be and ranking.

Danwillhor

February 4th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^

I'd say Purdue or Colorado for underachieving and maybe Houston for over achieving. BG is a MAC program but I think they were a bit too low but because they are MAC I wouldn't necessarily give it to them. Purdue and Colorado (what happened to them) should always be in the top 70, IMO. You almost have to try to be that bad and especially Colorado! Nice campus, some history, etc. Houston may be in Houston but it looks like a Community College. It would have been a better class if they didn't lose a a few guys on NSD.

McSomething

February 4th, 2016 at 2:43 PM ^

As I recall the son of Bear Bryant was seen as a major reason why the UAB football program was torpedoed in the first place. Is his capacity to railroad it going forward diminished, or has not much changed on that front?

Engin77

February 4th, 2016 at 8:07 PM ^

20 years from now ...

Football fan: You played college football! Where?

UAB recruit: <loud>UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA ... <quiet>birmingham.

Football fan: Good for you; let me buy you a drink.