UAB: An Amazing Recruiting Story
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
February 4th, 2016 at 12:40 PM ^
I'll break my cleats out of mothballs and suit up.
Good story - thank you for sharing!
February 4th, 2016 at 12:42 PM ^
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February 4th, 2016 at 12:59 PM ^
Rutgers also ranked below UAB's class.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:01 PM ^
Rugers also ranked below _______'s class
Are there any teams we could fill in that blank to make the statement false??
February 4th, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^
Purdue
Rutgers actually ranked higher than Purdue. The next three teams ranked immediately better than Purdue are UMass, Georgia Southern, and East Carolina.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:12 PM ^
It's impressive that Rutgers out-recruited Purdue considering that Michigan skimmed all of the good NJ players off the top.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:37 PM ^
They may have finished higher than University of Detroit.
Rutgers = The cityballers.com of the B1G
February 4th, 2016 at 9:18 PM ^
Illinois looks below UAB as well. It's crazy - almost a quarter of this conference is just a hot mess.
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 8:40 PM ^
They just fucked themselves hiring Funk.
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 2:58 PM ^
Their facilites are below average. But, they approved a 60 million upgrade last year that is supposed to break ground in May. They might want to allot some of that money to a decent coaching staff.
Darrell Hazell is 5-26 with only one B10 win. Burn.
February 4th, 2016 at 5:13 PM ^
They're in the middle of upgrading. Their problems are:
- 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?
- They're among a handful of schools who really are serious about the academic profiles of their players.
- They're in West Lafayette, Indiana, a charmless rust belt town in Indiana
- 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.
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 2:51 PM ^
I have a friend who started at Purdue in the '90s, pretty good linebacker, and he won't even go to the games anymore he's so disgusted.
February 4th, 2016 at 12:44 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 12:50 PM ^
Don't the recruiting rankings only take the top X players in a given class. So, small classes below the threshold hurt you, but just having a big class doesn't help you.
Also, great avatar and handle. That show was an underrated gem.
February 4th, 2016 at 12:58 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
Holy shit, how did I not know there was a movie coming out?
February 4th, 2016 at 2:33 PM ^
It's #1 on iTunes!
February 4th, 2016 at 1:05 PM ^
It definitely helped them - their average recruit rating is 78.92, which puts them more in the 80s range than the 60s.
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:50 PM ^
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:15 PM ^
"...the appeal of immediate playing time."
But...they don't have a game in 2016. Their first playing time won't be until Sept. 2017.
February 7th, 2016 at 12:41 AM ^
Yeah, every single recruit is getting "red shirted".
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
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?
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:28 PM ^
is the only thing I can think of. Their program was terminated for the 1987 season.
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).
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^
they took a couple seasons off so the UAB bagmen could replenish!
/s
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.
February 4th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
Cue Disney movie in 5...4....3.....2.....
February 4th, 2016 at 1:52 PM ^
great story - as long as indiana doesnt pick up any more freakish RBs from uab in the future
February 4th, 2016 at 1:58 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
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February 4th, 2016 at 4:42 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 2:43 PM ^
February 4th, 2016 at 4:56 PM ^
Whoops - wrong thread
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.