Alabama Football Recruiting: STILL Not Done Yet?

Alabama’s Wednesday December 21 Signing Day was a bonanza of riches. And there was much rejoicing. But then day broke on Thursday and soon after, the Crimson Tide added a seventh 5-star in CB Desmond Ricks, which sent the Twittersphere into a frenzy of proclamations of “the greatest class evah!” The future of the program improved even more when earlier this week, the Tide received a transfer pledge from CJ Dippre. More rejoicing.

Guess what? They still aren’t done.

This week at the Under-Armour All-America Game check-in press conferences, Bama running back signee Richard Young dropped a few nuggets.

“Man, we’re going to bring Bama back the way it used to be,” he told reporters on Thursday. “SEC and national championships again. We still have one more we gotta finish the 2023 class (with). He’s here today. So we need him and we’ll be good.”

A look at the Under Armour roster reveals three names of unsigned prospects that have had any connection to Alabama during the recruiting process. They are 5-star ATH Nyckoles Harbor, 4-star tight end Duce Robinson, and 5-star CB Cormani McClain.

Harbor has not been on the Alabama radar since summer. Robinson has the Tide in his final 5, but nobody thinks he will actually sign with them. That leaves McClain. Last week, the word was that Bama would sign Ricks OR McClain. But they certainly would not turn up their noses at both. While Ricks opted for the crimson and white, McClain appeared to be leaning towards the Miami Hurricanes. However, he made a surprising decision to not sign with anyone during the three day Early Signing Period. He will now have to wait until February 1 to sign.

The top ranked corner and No. 2 player overall arrived for the All-America Game on Wednesday dressed out in orange and green Miami gear and flashed a “U” hand sign to photographers. These actions were interpreted by several Miami beat writers as a commitment confirmation, but that might be a bit presumptuous. He did not talk to reporters.

McClain has taken one official visit and that was to South Beach back in June. Which leads us to interesting comments made by Nick Saban earlier today:

“The normal time when people used to visit, December and January, is almost obsolete. We may have one player that’s gonna visit in January as of right now. I’m talking about high school players.”

That is definite confirmation that the Alabama staff is not done with this class as of yet, but who that one person is will be determined at a later time.

February 1 is a long way off. Stay tuned...