Its always best to sow up the outstanding talent instate first. sends a message to all the barners that things have changed. I only look for us to sign maybe 4 more instate players, the rest will be on a national level.
Auburn has always leaned on out of state recruits. Most Alabamians are Alabama fans, many current recruits have family that played there. Nick is benefiting from an outstanding year of in-state talent (as he did when he first started at LSU), and will have a pretty good class based on it. He will not land many, maybe 1 or 2, national recruits - regional would be a more appropriate word.
How do you define national level, any good player who doesn't live in Alabama? I see a lot of excellent players that bama has offered; along with many other schools, but almost all of them are regional talents. National level insinuates that you are about to go cherry picking in non traditional recruiting areas. I have looked over the list of bama's offers and I don't see where bama is positioned to fill it's class as you are suggesting. LSU is attracting a lot more attention on the national level than bama, if getting a recruit from across the country to say your name as a possibility is a measure of prominence. http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=7...RecruitVisitFlag=-1&OrderbyColumn=RatingValue
Auburn regularly raids the states of Georgia and Florida. IMO, the state of Alabama has mostly been "U of 'Bama" because of the Tides' rich tradition. Case in point: Auburn had 30 commitments for the '07 class. Only 8 of those were from the state of Alabama, :shock: while a total of 12 were from the state of Georgia and Florida. In Auburn's '06 class, 10 (out of a class of 25) were from the state of 'Bama compared to 9 from the states of Georgia and Florida combined. and in both of those previous years, 'Bama had 11 in-state commitments out of a class of 25 in '07 and 9 in-state commitments out of a class of 23 in '06. ...and Saban wasn't the coach of 'Bama then.... Bascially, Saban is simply continuing a percentage trend that the Crimson Tide tends to have a higher percentage of in-state players than does Auburn.
That's exactly how I see it too. Look, there are a TON of Auburn fans/grads in Georgia--specifically Atlanta due to the close proximity of Auburn to Atlanta vs Atlanta to UGA--they're virtually the same distance. Furthermore, not to make a joke about it (although I'm sure one could EASILY be placed here) but UGA's admission standards are higher--much higher than that of Auburn. I got that bit of information from my neighbor, who was the defensive captain for the UGA football team in the mid '70's, and who's son, was denied entry into UGA but got in at Auburn (but ended up choosing to play soccer at Georgia State). So, a lot of people in the state of Georgia wind up at Auburn.
Because of HOPE scholarship money, folk that would have went elsewhere have inflated the demand for admission at UGA.
