Collegiate recruiting is one of the strangest things in sports. One part used car salesmen conference, one part pro draft and one part VH1′s Rock of Love where the crazy bitches are replaced with heavily muscled high school alpha males. First we’ll run things down by position in this years class.

QB: AJ McCarron
This kid has tremendous upside, but will he have the mental toughness to withstand being called a noodle armed dildo by 500 frat boys wearing pink shirts? I wouldn’t bet on AJ seriously challenging for the starting job, but weirder shit has happened, I mean, the Cardinals are in the Super Bowl.
RB: Trent Richardson, Mike Marrow (Still Waiting On: Eddie Lacy)
Trent Richardson would be an absolute steal out of the state of Florida, often called Emmitt Smith with long ass dreadlocks, while Mike Marrow was an early commitment that chose Bama over Penn State and Nebraska.
OL: DJ Fluker, Darius Keller, Anthony Steen, Chance Warmack, James Carpenter, (Still Waiting On: Bobby Massie, Brandon Moore)
The Big Uglies were such a huge part of the Tide’s 2008 success, and with the best Uglies headed to the NFL, Saban has convinced some of the largest 17 and 18 year olds on the planet earth to spend their college years in Tuscaloosa.
WR: Michael Bowman, Kevin Norwood (Still Waiting On: Patrick Patterson, Kendall Kelly, Reuben Randle)
Randle or Patterson would be huge out-of-state steals, while Bowman and Norwood will be solid additions to a deep but unproven group of Bama receivers. A few good signing day decisions of these guys could put Bama into the #1 recruiting spot nationally. I guess we’ll see next year if this was a position of need, or if Wilson was basically ignoring everyone not named Julio.
DL: William Ming, Anthony Orr, Chris Bonds, Quinton Dial, Darrington Sentimore, Kerry Murphy
This group will add to an already solid D-Line, in the Tide’s toughest 2008 games QBs often had enough time to get Bible verses tattooed on their biceps, so any of these guys capable of dropping the people’s elbow on those pass throwing motherfuckers could see early playing time.
LB: Ed Stinson, Nico Johnson, Petey Smith (Watching: Tana Patrick)
Ed Stinson has a shot to help UA’s pass rush immediately from the weird-ass Jack linebacker spot, while Johnson and Patrick are the state’s two best linebacker prospects.
DB: Rod Woodson (Still Waiting On: Dre Kirkpatrick, Greg Reid, Darren Myles)
Defensive back signing day decisions could take this group from a great class to a fucking amazing class. Its pretty suprising that to only have one defensive back commitment this late in the game, with defensive backs being Saban’s forte and all. Utah game aside, the current players looked great in 2008, but 6 of Alabama’s 12 scholarship DBs will be in their last year of eligibity in 2009.

Trent Richardson, Will he or Won’t He
This tough man-child downhill runner from Pensacola, Florida has been a decidedly uncommitted commitment the whole way through. It has made me question what the word commitment actually means? Can this guy actually qualify academically if he spends all his time on the phone with beat reporters and Rivals.com? The Tower of Bammer hopes that we see his black spaghetti-like locks flowing from a under a Crimson helmet next fall, but if this Prom Queen goes with another date, expect many to decree that the end is nigh for Nick Saban’s recruiting machine, even in the midst of another monster class.

Cap’n (Number) Crunch
If there is one answer I always hate, its “the numbers will work themselves out”, because, okay, I’m not math-a-maticion, but I do know that numbers don’t fucking work themselves out. Numbers don’t do shit, they just sit there and remain the same until additions, subtractions, or some other obscure formulaic operations take place. Alabama may end up signing over 25 (count em!) guys, while only having 8 (count em!) scholarships currently available. Does Nick Saban have another roller coaster offseason of cocaine arrests, medical scholarships and million dollar baseball contracts planned? Is a malevolent onslaught of unpleasantness in store for the last of the Shula recruits? Only time will tell, and you can bet Alabama Man Dance will be worried about it, but most big programs sign a lot more guys than they actually bring in, so we can only sit and wait.

In his post Arkansas press conference, Alabama Coach Nick Saban references the cruel and vicious Attila the Hun in the same sentence that he mentions a tasty sugary drink often delivered by an overweight anthropomorphic pitcher that busts through walls. Why would he do this? We’ll tell you why.

1) Nick Saban feels unnecessarily vilified, much like Attila, who was completely trashed by the media in the 450s. With the catchy nickname “Scourge of God”, the El Hunero Uno was accused of his brother’s murder, extortion of neighboring leaders (even the Pope), and accidentally eating his own sons.

2) He just finished reading Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, which, incidentally, is a good companion to Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?, did you know you should be shitting 11 times a day?

3) The University of Alabama will soon invade the Balkans: We will go ahead and consider this the least likely reason for the Attila reference, but this could be a possible untapped resource for Bauxite, Coal, thick-legged offensive linemen, and lots of people that have been pissed at each other for centuries.

4) Saban sees USC as the Roman Empire: He desires Alabama to be feared like the relentless Hun empire who played a part in the Roman Empire’s demise. Emperor Theodosius II is quoted as saying “You never want to battle the Huns, they try to dominate you with every disemboweling” and General Augustus Tubervilius once said “Those Huns scare me almost as much as my Board of Trustees”

5) Recruiting, Recruiting, Recruiting: As Attila plundered cities during his military campaigns he enlisted scores of recruits , this is pretty the only way Saban wants to travel.

6) Its All About the Process: The Process is all about people and execution, and Attila’s process efficiently combined the two, with a healthy dose of archers on horseback.

7) Education: Believe it or not, we’re an education institution here! Referencing an ancient Emperor is a lot more educational-like than saying Git-R-Done or ‘that running back was like Neo in the Matrix’.