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Tradition Helps Tide, Irish Reel In Year's Top Classes

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By RALPH D. RUSSO, The Associated Press

Published: February 7, 2008

All those ugly losses didn't stop Notre Dame from landing a beauty of a recruiting class.

Same goes for Miami.

And while Alabama's first season under Nick Saban was so-so, the first Crimson Tide recruiting class the $4 million-per-year coach can truly call his own turned out top-ranked.

Despite coming off lackluster seasons, Notre Dame, Miami and Alabama - along with Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma - came away with the top recruiting classes Wednesday, the first day of the national signing period for high school football players.

"It's a statement about tradition," said Allen Wallace, the national recruiting editor for Scout.com and publisher of SuperPrep magazine. "It's the hardest thing to get and it's the hardest to kill."

Terrelle Pryor broke with tradition and decided to put off his big decision. The coveted quarterback from Western Pennsylvania, who has been compared to Vince Young, had Ohio State and Michigan at the top of his list but wants to give Oregon and Penn State a better look.

For Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, signing day went much better than the 2007 season, when the most storied program in college football finished 3-9. Still, Weis was able to lure some of the best prospects in the country to South Bend, Ind.

"It's still Notre Dame," said recruiting analyst Bobby Burton of Rivals.com, which had Alabama's class No. 1 and Notre Dame's No. 2. "At the same time, when a team is 3-9, highly ranked kids see an opportunity to play right away."

The Fighting Irish class includes a five-star prospect at quarterback (Dayne Crist from Sherman Oaks, Calif.), wide receiver (Michael Floyd from St. Paul, Minn.) and tight end (Kyle Rudolph from Cincinnati) and plenty of defensive line help.

Saban went 7-6 in his first season at Alabama, and the Crimson Tide's losing streak to archrival Auburn reached six games.

Tide fans are hoping this year's stellar class, made up mostly of in-state players, is a sign Saban is starting to reclaim the state from Coach Tommy Tuberville and the Tigers.

Alabama's class was strong heading into Signing Day and got even better when Julio Jones, a wide receiver from Foley, Ala., considered one of the best players in the nation, and linebacker Jerrell Harris, from Gadsden, Ala., decided to stay close to home and join the Crimson Tide.

National champion LSU will need to reload fast just to stay on top of the Southeastern Conference. Aside from Alabama, Florida and Georgia added highly touted recruiting classes to their already well-stocked rosters.

Rivals.com had Florida's class ranked third and Georgia's sixth. LSU was No. 11.

As usual, Oklahoma mined talent-rich Texas to put together another top class. The Sooners' three highest-rated players - defensive end R.J. Washington, running back Jermie Calhoun and offensive lineman Stephen Good - all played in Texas.

The Sooners' class was ranked fifth by Rivals.

Southern California coach Pete Carroll has been the king of recruiting since he took over the Trojans in 2001, consistently landing classes ranked in the top two or three nationally. USC was 10th, according to Rivals.com, but don't think the Trojans have slipped. Their ranking was held down because they signed only 18 players, while most teams got at least 20. Alabama and Miami both signed 33.

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