Clemson. Auburn. Ole Miss. Ohio State. The four teams to beat Alabama since 2014. How did they do it? Did they out-recruit Alabama? Out-develop them? Out-scheme? What is the secret? I'm going to try and suss out the reasons some teams have been able to have success where most others have failed.
Let's be totally honest and admit that no one factor ensures success, but some programs have clearly done things better than others and Alabama is the king of the recruiting board. In fact, most programs aren't even remotely close. Over the last five years, based on the 247Sports Composite rankings, Alabama has finished with an average class ranking of 1.8 and a per recruit rating average of 93.12. That's a solid mid-ranked 4-star recruit on average! Most programs are thrilled to land a few guys ranking like that. Averaging that is almost unheard of. In fact, the next closest programs to pulling it off are Ohio State (3.6 class, 92.27 per recruit), Georgia (4.8 class, 91.60 per recruit), and Florida State (5.4 class, 91.28 per recruit). The Tennessee Volunteers, on the other hand, have averaged a class ranking of 12.6 and per player ranking of 88.58 That's about a high 3-star recruit on average despite having a class ranking close to Clemson (11.8 class, 90.73 per recruit), who averages a 4-star ranking per recruit over the last five seasons. Of course, the flip-side to that is Oklahoma, who is very similar to the Vols in class ranking and per recruit average at 13 for their class and 88.97 per recruit on average, so recruiting isn't everything by any means. Auburn and Ole Miss are much closer to Tennessee than they are Alabama in per recruit average.
So it's clear that recruiting isn't how any team has made themselves able to compete with Alabama because nobody has out-recruited them. What about development? Well, Ohio State, Georgia, and Ole Miss have all seen a fair bit of turnover on their staffs of late. Auburn has seen some as well. That makes for inconsistency in the development of players at their positions, but this has been true at Alabama as well. Granted, these programs aren't molding the same caliber of talent as Alabama usually is. However, Clemson is the great outlier. They seldom find themselves replacing coaches. They have turned that consistency on the staff into elite player development, drawing the best out of the talent they land. At least in part due to that staff consistency, they have less of the transfers and early draft entrants that pick apart the Alabama roster year in and year out.
What about scheme? Well, that's where Ole Miss and Auburn come in for the most part. Hugh Freeze was simply able to out-scheme Saban on a couple of occasions. He didn't have better talent. He didn't have better coaches. His staff wasn't necessarily that much more stable at that point. Hugh Freeze was simply able to put players in space and make the most of what he did have with his offensive system. Auburn runs a spread, which prior to this last season was something Saban had largely resisted adopting until he had a pair of quarterbacks in Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa who were perfect fits for such a system, and he finally realized that spreading opponents out didn't have to mean abandoning power running. Ohio State also falls into this category to a degree, but Ohio State also recruits as close to the Crimson Tide as anyone, so they have the added advantage of putting strong talent into their spread scheme that they ran under Urban Meyer, which should have been the model that Saban had adopted several years ago.
If you're a program looking to catch up to Alabama, even to a lesser degree like Auburn and Ole Miss have, the model shouldn't be the Crimson Tide. You cannot bank on out-recruiting Nick Saban and his staff. The program sells itself. Ask Georgia, who these last couple of cycles has recruited as close to the Tide as possible. Even so, they haven't managed to beat Alabama. Yes, it landed them in the title game, but we all saw how that ended for them as Tua Tagovailoa launched a Heisman campaign off his performance. Clemson has become the foil to Alabama by being the anti-Alabama. They bring in guys who largely stay for four to five years. They keep the staff together and develop those players with consistency. They recruit at a high level but not at the same level as Alabama, leaning on the player development and program stability to overcome any talent deficiencies they have in comparison to the Tide.
None of this is to suggest that Alabama doesn't develop or retain players. It's not to suggest that the coaching turnover has significantly hurt the Tide. Clearly, neither thing would be true, but it is to suggest that Clemson, through unparalleled stability and development, has found a way to keep pace with Alabama by doing it their own way. For a program like Tennessee, they cannot look to Alabama as the model to follow because they can't bank on success breeding further success. Tennessee hasn't recruited at that level during the age of recruiting websites, and the idea that they will now is blindly optimistic at best. What they might do, however, is recruit at the level of a Clemson, LSU, or Georgia, keep the bulk of the staff together, promote from within when necessary, and stabilize the program. Chasing Alabama has yielded mixed results at best for most programs. Chasing Clemson is the easier road, although it still isn't an easy road by any means in an age where coaches seldom remain at one school for more than three years.
I'm inclined to believe Jeremy Pruitt is a smart young coach, and it's likely he's seen the results of Georgia trying to become another Alabama as opposed to what has been done at Clemson. If Pruitt is the coach I believe he is, he's electing to follow the Clemson method of competing with Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide, and so far that does appear to be the case as he has fought to retain his current on-field coaches and significant support staffers while also hiring a new offensive coordinator with ties to the program who seems likely to stay as long as he's welcome to do so. Having said all of that, remember that it wasn't until year four that Clemson saw their first ten win season under Dabo Swinney. Still, once they reached that threshold, they never looked back, now having recorded eight seasons with 10+ wins, a 97-15 overall record and 56-8 conference record, three national title game appearances, and two national titles. If Tennessee fans can remain patient and Pruitt can properly follow the road map laid forth by Swinney, Vol fans may find themselves incredibly well-rewarded.
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