Two More Wins and Alabama's 2017 Recruiting Class Puts Exclamation Point As Greatest of All Time
DALLAS — Looking back on the University of Alabama's thrilling 26-23 win over Georgia back in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship Game, the players that defined it were only freshman at the time: quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, running back Najee Harris, offensive tackle Alex Leatherwood, and wide receivers Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith.
Little did anyone know then what the signing class of 2017 would go on to accomplish at the Capstone — a 49-4 overall record, 25-1 record inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, three bowl wins, two Southeastern Conference championships, one national title, and a chance to beat Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl on Friday for a crack at its second national championship.
Not to mention, the professional success that this recruiting class has already accomplished.
Tagovailoa, Jeudy, Ruggs, and offensive tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. were all first-round picks in the 2020 NFL draft. Safety Xavier McKinney was a high second-round selection that year, too.
Defensive end Isaiah Buggs found himself to be a sixth-round pick in the 2019 event.
Looking ahead to the 2021 NFL draft, early selections will likely be Leatherwood, Smith, Harris, linebacker Dylan Moses, and quarterback Mac Jones, if he chooses to declare early.
If those players go in the first round like many mock drafts speculate, that would give the 2017 bunch a total of nine first rounders.
There's also running back Brian Robinson Jr., linebacker Christopher Allen, defensive lineman Phidarian Mathis and defensive end LaBryan Ray who could all be second-or-third day selections whenever they elect to head to the NFL.
At minimum, the Crimson Tide could see 15 of the 29 enrollees from that group drafted.
Of those 29 enrollees from 2017 signing class, only seven did not finish their college careers with Alabama or leave early for the NFL: Markail Benton (Jacksonville State), Tyrell Shavers (Mississippi State), VanDarius Cowan (West Virginia), Elliot Baker, Chadarius Townsend (Texas Tech), Kedrick James (SMU) and Kyriq McDonald (Cincinnati).
"I don't ever think of it that way," Saban said when asked of the moment he knew the 2017 group could be really special. "We just try to take the guys from wherever they are and try to develop them so that they can be the best that they can be. And there's some guys that we have very high hopes for and think are going to be great players that don't really pan out, and there's other guys that become great players when you really didn't think that they might become great players.
"So I think we just take each individual player and try to help them develop personally, academically and athletically so that they can be the best version of themselves and go out and compete and create value for themselves as football players."
While it's easy to see the on-field accomplishments for this class, it almost didn't come together the way it did.
Starting with Harris, the nation's No. 1 overall player and crown jewel of the class when he came out of Antioch High School in California.
The kid who would later become the Crimson Tide's all-time leading rusher originally committed to Saban and company in April of 2015, but Alabama had to withstand a flurry of visits to Michigan and contact with Wolverines coaches to hold on to his pledge.
"Going back to recruitment, I didn't like it," Harris said. "It's too much attention, way too much attention for me. I think I just showed up here. I just showed up. I didn't even tell them I was coming here. I just showed up. I was tired of it. I popped up at the airport with Tua.
"And I didn't even know all the recruits that was here. So first day of practice, I seen all these recruits I knew in high school. I look around I'm like, man, we've actually got a pretty good recruiting class here. And, I mean, obviously it showed up in the championship game freshman year and now ever since. I think it took off. Coach Saban did a really good job of recruiting. And hopefully we get to bring one more natty home."
Moses, who grew up in the literal backyard of SEC West foe, LSU, attending University Lab until he transferred to IMG Academy after his junior year. Had the Tigers not moved on from Les Miles in the middle of the 2016 season, chances are the star backer would've ended up in purple and gold.
But Alabama's stockpile of talent and player development paved the way for him to end up in Tuscaloosa over LSU with a new coaching staff.
"Of course, that was one of the main reasons I committed to Alabama," Moses said. "I wanted to be part of a great team and be surrounded by great competition. That was something that I looked at before I committed. And I knew that us all coming together would be something would be beneficial later on down the road."
The same could also be said for the 2020 Heisman Trophy front-runner and the SEC's all-time leading in receiving touchdowns, Smith, who had been committed to Georgia under Mark Richt before the Bulldogs went after Kirby Smart.
Smith ended up inking on the dotted line with the Crimson Tide on the traditional signing day in February of 2017 and the relationships built amongst future teammates helped him feel comfortable in knowing that his signing class could accomplish special things together.
"A lot of us we went to a lot of camps together," Smith said. "We talked to each other. Some of us kind of knew where others were leaning to and some of us were already kind of committed here. And it was just everybody just recruiting each other just building the relationship. And I feel like that's what made us so close, is just before we even got here the relationships that we had."
And then we have Jones, who has the second-highest odds to win the Heisman Trophy this year behind Smith. He was the second signal caller in the class behind Tagovailoa, but was orginally committed to Kentucky.
The Jacksonville, Fla. native was a part of the Wildcats' class for nearly 11 months before flipping to the Crimson Tide in the summer of 2016.
Seeing how he has developed into one of the budding stars in college football, the in-state Florida Gators have to be scratching their heads on why they passed up on Jones for Jake Allen, who ended up transferring to Dartmouth in 2018.
Coming to the Capstone was just too much for Jones and his family to pass up.
"I knew they were all special, even before we got here at camps and stuff, all those guys — Smitty, Ruggs, Jeudy — throwing to them at camps, really cool opportunity," Jones said of his signing class. "Obviously you can look at that class be, like, wow. Right now there's a few guys in the NFL, a few guys that will be in the NFL probably next year. And it's really cool to be part of that class. I was kind of the second quarterback. And obviously, like we talked about earlier, I've learned from Tua and obviously learned from everybody in that class. It's been really cool to be a part of that growth."
Like Moses and Allen, the Crimson Tide was able to raid the state of Louisiana throughout the 2017 cycle including landing the 6-foot-4, 310-pound Phidarian Mathis from Neville High School in Monroe.
"When I signed, I didn't really think — I really didn't envision the big class that we have," Mathis said. "But, like I say, after winning the National Championship my freshman year, I was, like, wow, man you got Jeudy, Tua, Smitty, all those guys. We did have a big class. I'm just proud to say that I'm a part of that."
Along with Wills, Alabama's other bookend tackle in the class was Leatherwood, a Pensacola, Fla. native that is in the running for the Outland Trophy this season and a consensus first-team All-American.
Leatherwood verbally committed to the Crimson Tide in the summer of 2015 and stayed true to that pledge until he enrolled in early January of 2017, but a week before he signed, took a trip to Gainesville to visit the in-state Gators.
At the end of the day, Saban and the Alabama coaching staff at that time — none of which who are still in Tuscaloosa (ie. Lane Kiffin, Brent Key, Billy Napier, Mario Cristobal, Jeremy Pruitt, and Kirby Smart) — who helped recruit the other-worldly 2017 class had to do what it has shown time and time again since Saban has arrived at the Capstone; that it can close the deal for the nation's biggest high school recruits.
A win against the Fighting Irish would put another feather in the hat for the argument that 2017 is the greatest recruiting class in college football history.
One more national title might very well put this squad over the top.
"I feel like we're the greatest of all time, if you ask me," Leatherwood said. "We had a lot of talent. But aside from us all being talented, things like that, we're all hard workers. And we all had a common goal in mind and that was to win a National Championship and be the best players that we could be and that's why we came here."
Sports Illustrated All-American's football recruiting director John Garcia Jr. contributed to this story.
