Quote Originally Posted by Tater View Post
Recruiting rankings always pander to large fanbases who sell clicks and coaches / schools who "play the game" with recruiting sites: Tennessee, A&M, etc. Shocking we have a doomsday post about recruiting right when the sites have their major ranking shakeup going into the season. /s

NIL only changes the legality of paying players (and therefore allows more open organization for some schools). A&M isn't the top recruiter because of NIL. They hired Bjork to set up "the network" like he facilitated at OM. They'd be #1 without it. But if you'll notice, the chairs are changing. Auburn & Florida are cycling out. LSU is in a precarious spot. Arkansas has a full class already, so their numbers are skewed comparatively (23 commits). They're not cycling in.

If anything, this just realigns the top half a bit. The bottom half won't keep up and within 10 years you'll be back to teams paying out the ass (Georgia going 100 in a 70) and teams like State, SCar, & UK being more efficient with their dollars because spending to go from 30th to 25th don't mean shit. Same as it always was. The gap doesn't widen from top half to bottom half because there is only so many seats and schollies available. The scholarship cap is the thing holding it together. As long as that is in place and we stay in the same conference as Alabama, we're going to have a shot every year. Not a great one, but a shot. And that's all you can ever really ask for.
Good post.

I will say that when Saban retires there is going to be major shakeup in power in the SEC. Just like when Bear Bryant left. He'll be 71 this year and for reference guys like Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno were 80 and 85 respectively when they stopped. At some point he's going to stop in the next 10 years likely. And in the meantime other teams are going to use his age against him in recruiting. "Saban won't be at Bama when you graduate".