Alabama Football: On3 recruiting expert has jaw-dropping remarks on the Tide

We sat down with Jimmy Stein from On3's Bama Online and the podcast Locked on Bama, to discuss the current state of the Tide from recruiting to the talent available for this fall!

Alabama landed a commitment from 5-star offensive lineman, Ty Haywood. He's a big guy at 6'5" and weighing 297 pounds. While often times SEC schools like to get recruits in their strength and conditioning programs to get them ready for SEC play, some do contribute early.

How quickly do you think Ty Haywood may contribute?

"I think he could contribute super early," Stein said. "As a matter of fact, I think a couple of good comparisons for him in terms of who he's similar to as a player is J.C. Latham. And while J.C. didn't start immediately as a true freshman, he did start a game near the end of his true freshman season, at guard against Cincinnati, in a college football playoff game. And I think he's similar to J.C. Latham. He's also really similar to Jonah Williams, who did start a game."

"His true freshman year, Jonah Williams was 6'5" and 300 pounds close to J.C. who is at 6'5" and 297 pounds, as you pointed out.  Ty's ranked 11th in the On3 industry ranking and Jonah was ranked 12'th, so in terms of size of where they're ranked, and really in terms of skill set, he's quite similar to Jonah Williams, too. So I think he's a guy that could play early. But playing early takes more than just a player that's ready to play. It also takes opportunity so there has to be an available tackle spot, you know, when he shows up. If you have a sophomore, junior or senior all-star in front of you, with that spot, then he may have to wait his turn, regardless of how good he is. But I do think that Ty would physically have the skill set to play quickly."

Does Ty Haywood project as an offensive tackle with On3 recruiting service, or does he project at offensive guard?  

"I personally think too much is made of tackle versus guard," Stein said. "You know Tyler Booker played tackle at Alabama his first spring then moved to guard. Eric Jones was an all-SEC player at Alabama at both tackle and guard. I think the real great ones can do either. I think all of these guys have an ideal spot and Ty ‘s ideal spot is probably tackle because of his feet, but can he play guard? Absolutely."

Alabama also landed 5-star wide receiver recruit, Caleb Cunningham, who is 6’2” and 180 pounds out of Mississippi. Rivals stated Cunningham was arguably the best recruit of the DeBoer era so far. Obviously, Ryan Williams, the 5-star receiver who came in this year is an outstanding talent, so that’s saying a lot!

Do you agree that Caleb Cunningham is a bigger recruit in the Kalen DeBoer era than Ryan Williams?

"Yeah, if he's not the best player that's committed to DeBoer so far at Alabama, he would be on the very, very short list along with, like you, pointed out Ryan Williams would be up there," Stein said. "And even Ty Haywood is up there. I even like Deja Lee, and Duke Williams. But I think Caleb Cunningham has the perfect skill set for wide receiver. "

Will anything prevent Caleb Cunningham from playing early?

"I think one thing that might hold him back a little bit early on is he hasn't played against premium competition in high School, at Choctaw County, Mississippi sort of a rural area," Stein said. "So he's going up against, you know, kids from the country. It's not like he's playing in Jackson or plays at South Panola or some Mississippi powerhouse. He's not playing against premium competition all the time, so it might take a little bit of an adjustment for him.

But he's got the speed at 6’2”, plus he's got some catch radius to him. The finest highlight tape he's got to me is the basketball highlight tape, which is 4 min of watching him dunk, in High School basketball games from his 9’th 10’th and 11’th grade seasons.

He's just clearly such a special premium athlete. It'll just be learning about the small things like how to run routes in the SEC and going up against bigger, stronger, longer DB’s, but Caleb Cunningham has absolutely a world of upside! He's a true 5-star to me, meaning this guy's about as good as it gets as a prospect at that position."

Nick Saban kind of abruptly and unexpectedly announced his retirement. Then DeBoer comes in and has to hold together the current recruiting class at that time as well as retain as much of the roster as he could since Saban’s departure opened the transfer portal for Alabama players. With DeBoer never having recruited in the south, there was some concerns amongst fans on how he would do but recruiting is on fire right now.

Did you expect Kalen DeBoer to be recruiting at this high of a level so quickly?

"No, I did not, even though I would say I was more optimistic than most," Stein said. "I thought some of the questions about will he be able to recruit the south was fair. I understood that but I also remember Nick Saban coming to LSU from Michigan State and Nate Oats, who's recruiting extremely well for Alabama basketball, came to Alabama from Buffalo. I think the world's changed a little bit. I don't think that question is quite as important as maybe it used to be. Now that the world is sort of shrunk due to social media and other factors. So I didn't really worry or buy into that for him."

How did you feel Kalen DeBoer would adjust at Alabama?

"I thought the adjustment would be something he would easily do," Stein said. "Nick Saban built a recruiting Ferrari at Alabama. He only had to step into the driver seat and keep it between the lines. Now, what I didn't expect is that he would jump on that Ferrari and win the Indy 500, which is what he's doing with it right now. I mean he's recruiting at an exceptional level. I did not see that coming so I would say I was more optimistic than most that he would do well. But no, I didn't see him signing the number one class. Right now per On3, Alabama's ranked number one. They may hold on to that spot throughout the whole cycle. I didn't expect that. I think a lot of credit goes to Kalen DeBoer, of course, and his general manager, Courtney Morgan, who's sort of the 1st point of contact for most kids that Alabama recruits."

Everyone is learning a new system, which is great for Ryan Williams

"Oh, that's a great point. It really is," Stein said. "Because all the players are in in kind of a learning mode. Instead of trying to help Ryan catch up. Now he did miss the spring. Most of the receiving corps was there in the spring. So that's a little bit of a head start on Ryan, but he’s a guy that's extremely football savvy I think.

Another thing that helped Ryan, just like we talked about how at Choctaw County, Caleb Cunningham has a bit of a learning curve ahead of him, Ryan Williams played against elite competition at Sarah Land high school and they play a demanding schedule, one of the tougher schedules in the whole State.

Ryan played with and against elite players all the time, so I think that's going to help him show up and sort of be ready. He does have to learn the new scheme. You know he will probably need to work on blocking, for instance, something he didn't have to do a ton of at Sarah Land in terms of what he was asked to do. He'll definitely have to learn that at Alabama.

But I fully expect Ron Williams be a factor in the wide receiver rotation this fall. I don't think it's fair to expect a lot based on his age. Being only 17 years old and not having a 12th grade, it’s probably unfair to expect too much, but he's overachieved every step of the way in his life football wise to this point, and I don't think that's going to stop now. I think Ryan's going to be a significant player in this Alabama offense."

Jimmy Stein projects Alabama to sign around 25 players in 2025.

"We haven't been told specifically, but I always started with the idea under Saban and continuing under DeBoer that the goal or the roundabout number is 25," Stein said. "

"The old 25 rule doesn't exist anymore. It used to be limited to signing 25 a year. That rule doesn't exist anymore. You can sign as many as you want without going over 85 total on the football team, but I think around 25 is ultimately going to be the number. That means adding as many as 2, 3, or 4 more."

What do you think a successful first season for DeBoer looks like?

"When you look like at the 85-man roster and the projected 22 starters on this team, it’s not unfair to expect this team to make the 12 team college football playoffs," Stein said.

"I don't think many teams in college football have a better roster than Alabama, Ohio State is up there, Georgia's up there, Texas is up there, and maybe Oregon. Alabama has a top 5 roster, in my opinion. Certainly a top 10 roster, so I think making the playoff is a is a fair expectation.

He probably needs to finish about 10 wins and 2 losses. I mean, you could potentially finish 9 wins and 3 losses, and backdoor your way in, maybe, but to be on the safe side, it needs to be 10 & 2 or better. That's sort of what I expect. You know, this fall if Alabama is around a 10 & 2 type record, and making the playoffs, I won’t be surprised.

If Alabama is 12 & O, with a new coach and a new scheme, and the staff’s 1st time in the sec, that would be surprising! It would also be surprising to me if they finished 8 & 4 and missed the playoffs. So I think 9 & 3 or 10 & 2 type year."

What can Alabama fans expect from the secondary this fall and after all of the losses?

"Well, I think it's fair to say that might be the biggest question mark on the team," Stein said. "I think when you look at every unit on the roster, there are more questions about the secondary than any other spot, particularly at cornerback."

"Now, there's plenty of reason to be optimistic about how the secondary will work out. I'm not predicting doom and gloom. I'm just saying, yeah, it's fair to question the secondary spot. Keon Sabb is very likely to be a starter next to Malachi Moore. He's only started 5 games in his career. He was at Michigan 2 years. He started 5 games and people say he's the replacement for Caleb Downs, who might be in year 2, the best safety in the entire country. You've got a new safety who has only started 5 games. Devontae Smith right now is set to start at the husky spot, which is the new term for nickel corner at Alabama.

Devontae, has a lot of potential, and he would have been a starter last year if he hadn't gotten hurt in fall camp. He's in year 4, and he's never started a game. So he's a question mark until he's played well in SEC football games because we haven't seen that happen. At corner there's even bigger questions. The 2 projected starters right now, Domani Jackson, a transfer from USC, and Deshawn Jones, a transfer from Wake Forest, they're both good players. There's no question that they're good. But Domani struggled as a sophomore at USC, playing on what was a pretty bad defense there. How much was that his surrounding talent, and how much of it was him? How much of it was the fact that he was young? Domani, when he played last year at USC, it wasn't great all the time.

Now Jackson is replacing “Kool-aid” Mckinstry and he's replacing Terrion Arnold, and he hasn't played like Mckinstry or Arnold. Yet we think he's capable of great play based on his measurable attributes like his length and the speed he has. He was a universal 5- star coming out of high school, but he hasn't played like it yet in a college game.

There’s also Deshawn Jones. He's more of a solid player. Deshawn has played well at Wake Forest starting for 2 years. Jones has been draft eligible for a couple of cycles now, and there has never been any talk of Deshawn Jones entering the draft.

He still has a lot of questions to answer, as far as being an elite player. That's why he wanted to go to a place like Alabama to answer those questions. But Deshawn Jones has not played corner like an elite player. He was not an all ACC corner this year or last year. 1st team, second team, none of it. So Deshawn Jones and Domani Jackson have a lot to prove at corner and Devontae Smith hasn't started a game.

It's fair to question that spot. But there's also reasons to be excited about each one of those kids each one of them has the potential to be a really good player."

With new defensive coordinator Kane Wommack coming in, can we expect growing pains from the defense?

"You know, it is a brand new scheme. There's a lot of similarities with the defense, but also enough newness to where you question how quick they'll pick up on things," Stein said.

"Maybe one good thing is this is simpler than the Saban defense. The Saban defense was famously complex. This is a simpler one. Gap defense upfront, which means the players are only responsible for one gap instead of 2.

They're going to be more of a zone group in the back-end but not complete zone. They're not abandoning man coverage at all, but there'll just be more zone, more watching, the quarterback, more watching the ball. That's a little easier than what Nick Saban was having his DB’s do. I think those two kind of counteract. There's a new scheme that could lead to some busts but on the other hand, the defense is more simple.

I also like the fact that Alabama plays Western Kentucky and South Florida out of the gate. That will be good, for lack of a better term, for a dress rehearsal to get everything ready. To get everybody on the same page before you go to a Wisconsin game. That's going to be a fairly tough road game against a good opponent."

What can fans expect from Kalen DeBoer's new offensive system?

"I like that observation a lot as I think DeBoer comes in with a reputation as a guy who likes to throw around a lot," Stein said. "[Michael] Penix lead the nation last year (under BeBoer at Washington) throwing the football, so people assume that means DeBoer likes to throw it a lot.

 DeBoer, like most really good offensive minds, bends his offense to what the offense does best, and with this offenssive line having 4 potential all-star candidates and the upgrade at running backs, as far as I'm concerned, I think the talent level at running back is higher than it was a year ago. I fully expect, especially early in the season, for Alabama to lean on that run game and have jam Miller and Justice Haynes to be the main engines behind this offense. It makes all the sense in the world to me.

I don’t think DeBoer is a guy that just wants to throw it all over the place. Look at his running back last year, Dylan Johnson. He was second in the PAC-12 last year with 1,200 rushing yards, so I think Alabama will run more than people think. I also think they will throw more than they did a year ago. [Jalen] Milroe only threw the ball 23 times a game last year. Jam Miller and Justice Haynes though at running back are the two best players on that offense."

What makes Akylin Dear such a good addition for Alabama?

"AK [Akylin Dear] is a tremendous prospect because he checks every box. He has plus size for the position, he has burst, and he has some long speed. He is comfortable running inside or outside. He can give you tough yards or hit the homerun. He’s built differently than the other guys in the room now so he’s an intriguing addition."