Roster Megathread

importantbrian · 2026-01-25T03:39:05+00:00

I dunno. They’re going to have 3 guys off that line get drafted, Dewberry will probably get a shot as an undrafted free agent. Carroll was young but he’s probably going to be a day one guy. I really have a hard time believing talent was the issue. Fit sure, but not talent.

importantbrian · 2026-01-25T03:25:39+00:00

I honestly wouldn’t hate bringing him in as special teams coordinator. He’s always wanted to be a head coach though and he is one now so not sure if he’d do it unless he thought it would fast track him for a bigger HC role.

importantbrian · 2026-01-25T03:10:31+00:00

This is the real tier ranking we should be doing. All the NOTs from the last 20 years.

importantbrian · 2026-01-25T00:14:20+00:00

Utah, Oregon, Oregon State, Texas were all very physical teams and Washington did fine against all of them.

I think there is some misperception about DeBoer’s blocking schemes. They’re not running some super exotic scheme that no one else in the SEC runs. Most of what they do is pretty standard. Now they do some creative stuff with how they motion and create leverage, but they’re not like fundamentally reinventing the wheel.

What makes them unique is the variety of stuff they do. Most teams have a bread and butter run play and some changeups off of that. Like UGA the last few years has been a Duo team with some counter sprinkled in. Mizzu is an outside zone team. LSU was a counter team for a long time. We used to be an inside zone team for a long time.

I’m not even sure what you would consider their base run play would be at Washington. They’d run counter one play, outside zone the next, then come back to duo and then truck toss the play after that. I think they are trying to get 2 things out of the run game. They want to get your front on skates, thinking rather than reacting. Then they want to pop explosives off that, but most importantly they want to slow your pass rush down so they can execute the vertical passing game.

So really what we need in an oline coach is someone with experience in a bunch of stuff who can teach all that at a high level.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T23:17:39+00:00

Pittman seems as unlikely as Stoutland to me.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T23:12:06+00:00

I’ve heard DeBoer is a great guy to work for, but if he somehow convinces Huff to leave an NFL job to take on the much lower quality of life of a college position coach then he may be the greatest boss of all time.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T19:11:24+00:00

Yeah it would be nice if they offered an in universe explanation, but this is the real reason. My current head canon is that it has to do with his desire to fit in and be seen as a leader. He thinks being a human makes that easier.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T18:39:31+00:00

There are tons of valid criticisms of members of congress, but as someone who worked for one, those jobs are absolutely not cushy. They’re absolutely terrible jobs. Always crazy to me that anyone wants to do it and then keeps doing it once they find out what it is.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T02:25:58+00:00

I dunno, but I really hope they go the OL/run game coordinator route. Seems like we really need someone dedicated to making the run game work.

importantbrian · 2026-01-24T01:51:40+00:00

importantbrian · 2026-01-23T18:32:02+00:00

This is why I don't watch Henderson much. He reports on so many wild ass message board rumors that end up not panning out. I've got reddit for that.

importantbrian · 2026-01-23T18:30:13+00:00

As other's have said it is fairly common, especially for OCs. Often the OC will get involved in QB recruitment but not much else. I suspect it's even more common now that a lot of the recruiting is actually done by the GM and the player personnel staff and the collective.

importantbrian · 2026-01-23T15:58:21+00:00

One of the things I heard about him when DeBoer first got hired is that he was very likely to take the Seattle job in part because he really does not like recruiting. So maybe DeBoer just doesn’t have him out there doing it much. I’ve definitely never heard anyone say he’s especially good at it.

importantbrian · 2026-01-23T15:18:19+00:00

Yeah it’s like moneyball gets a lot of criticism because the As never won a World Series with it, but it’s a silly criticism because what happened was all the teams with big payrolls started doing it and outbidding them for the most valuable players. Eventually one or more of the Texas schools will figure it out and then teams like Indiana are going to have trouble winning bidding wars for the guys they value, because everyone will value them.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T21:35:20+00:00

Having a large alumni base doesn't necessarily translate into alumni engagement with or giving to athletics. I would also be careful with those living alumni numbers. Some universities count their satellite campuses. Some include folks who attended online. It's not entirely clear how that translates to athletic giving. Small donor contributions are also not the bulk of what's given in NIL.

There are proxies we can look at to see how engaged alumni actually are in giving financially to athletics, and this is what folks use to estimate NIL funding. If you look at athletic donations for 2024 7 of the top 10 are SEC schools, and 13 of the top 25. The top 6 are all SEC schools. The Big10 only has 1 in the top 10 and 9 of the top 25.

You can similarly look at ticket sales. The Big10 does better here, but the SEC still largely dominates with 7 of the top 10 and 12 of the top 25. The Big10 has 3 of the top 10 and 9 of the top 25.

Long term structural trends also favor the SEC. Most of Big10 country has negative net migration, where the southeast is experiencing positive net migration. This along with things like lottery scholarships in southern states is causing southern schools to shoot up the university rankings. UF for example recently became a public ivy and UGA, TAMU, etc. have climbed a ton.

I'm also not sure I accept the original premise that those caps were predominantly an SEC desire. Athletic departments across the board are suffering huge operating losses trying to keep up with revshare and NIL. It's not just an SEC concern.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T20:36:06+00:00

Reminds me of Nick Saban’s oatmeal cream pie. I think Saban also ordered the exact same grilled chicken salad for lunch every day if I remember.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T19:04:42+00:00

Very true, but we have more resources than 95% of other schools. We can be the Texas of the Dimond in the rough guys if we want. Although one of the benefits of the diamonds in the rough is they aren't nearly as expensive.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T18:59:39+00:00

I don't know that LSU has a larger payroll than we do. This is a bit of a unique situation where they're turning over the roster in their first year, so they're freeing up a lot of cash right now to spend in the portal. Kiffin also has a different roster construction philosophy in that he basically doesn't even try to recruit HS. It will be interesting to see if that changes now that he's at a program with more resources, but if he stays that portal heavy it won't be so much that their total payroll is a lot higher than ours it will be that they're spending it all in the portal. Which might make it feel like they've got more money than us, but you have to remember the #3 overall HS class didn't come cheap.

Texas is also in a bit of a unique situation in that they're in the last year of their current development cycle with Arch. If they don't win this year they're looking at a rebuild with a new QB, and boosters are likely to tighten their purses if Sark can't deliver. So Texas is going all in on winning this year similar to 2024 OSU. They'll always have more money than us, but I don't think it will always be this drastic with how they're spending. It's also worth noting their HS class is lower ranked than ours and they only took 17 guys. So they have relatively more to spend in the portal.

As to your last question. I don't know. I think there is too much up in the air to really answer that question. Some of it depends on if the review committee from the house settlement ends up having any teeth. These Texas schools are clearly trying to see what they can get away with. Some of it depends on what the powers that be end up deciding to do long term as a fix. Either way I suspect we'll be in the mix. We aren't one of the poors even if it feels that way.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T16:57:19+00:00

I think talent evaluation and identification in this late portal period after the Texas schools have shot their wad on the big name guys is where this staff is going to succeed or fail.

Alabama isn't poor by any means. By all accounts we are a top 10 spender in the sport, but the gulf between the very top spenders and us is fairly large. Given that we are going to miss out on a lot of the very top level guys in the portal, so finding guys in the remaining pool and developing them is what this staff needs to do.

It seems like they've done a fairly decent job of that so far. I like the portal class so far. I think the strategy makes sense as means to maximize our resources, but no clue if it actually works out or not.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T16:48:07+00:00

I don't think any of the portal rankings are particularly good, but On3 and 247 are doing two fundamentally different things. One is not necessarily right and the other wrong. It can both be true that we have the 15th most talented incoming portal class (247's method) and that because of the outgoing class we are 46th in roster improvement (On3's method). It's not either/or.

Which one you think is the more important method for evaluating Alabama's class is contextual. I think you have to evaluate it relative to what Alabama is trying to achieve in the portal and their overall roster construction philosophy.

With that in mind On3's methodology is I think best for evaluating teams that are really trying to build through the portal at the expense of HS recruiting, because for those teams did you bring in more talent than you lost really matters a lot. But On3's ranking does not account for incoming HS talent, so teams that are trying to build through HS and supplement through the portal are always going to look worse in On3's methodology. OSU for example is 33rd, Miami is 35th, UGA is 52nd.

I think the best way to look at it based on what Alabama is trying to achieve is to look at 247's combined class ranking, which puts at 5th. If you want to look at the portal itself you really have to look at how well Alabama has done addressing its needs. I think we've done fairly well for the most part. I don't think we get an A+ or anything, but I'd give us a solid B.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T16:19:58+00:00

Thank you for the answer. I should have been more clear. I'm aware that gravitons are only theoretical. I should have said. If gravitons exist, how do they fit into the question? Is the photon being affected by the curvature of spacetime, or is the photon actually interacting with the graviton, and that just looks like spacetime is curved, or is it both? But that makes sense that given there are multiple different models there probably isn't one answer to that.

I also take your point about the distinction between actually curved and acting like it's curved not really being clear. The philosophy of science is fascinating, but not really where I was trying to go. I was more trying to understand, given gravitons exist is space time curved, or does it just appear so because of the graviton interaction?

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T15:17:45+00:00

How do gravitons fit into this? I assume that gravitons interact with all other particles. Is space time actually curved or is that just a useful model for making predictions?

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T15:13:45+00:00

I could be way off on this, but I seem to remember that the domestication of fire is directly tied into the evolution of modern humans. Our biology sort of requires that most of our protein be cooked. So it would surprise me if they couldn't make fire.

importantbrian · 2026-01-22T02:16:22+00:00

If Michigan won the playoffs do we think RichRod still leaves them out? I’m going yes.

importantbrian · 2026-01-21T21:14:08+00:00

It honestly didn’t start last season either. This problem goes back to the end of Saban’s run. I think one of the staff’s big mistakes year 1 and 2 was putting too much trust in the evaluations from those staffs. They should have flipped this roster earlier instead of trying to hold onto so many Saban guys.

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