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Alabama Football Assistant Coach Exodus is Catching Up in Recruiting, but Help is on the Way

Karl Dunbar, Alabama’s defensive line coach, is headed to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

His departure comes after 3 other losses from the 2017 coaching staff:

  • defensive backs coach Derrick Ansley left for the Oakland Raiders
  • offensive coordinator Brian Daboll left to be OC for the Buffalo Bills
  • defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt left to become head coach at the University of Tennessee

This year’s Alabama recruiting class definitely felt the effects of coaching changes.  247Sports.com has Alabama ranked #7 in their final 2018 team recruiting rankings.

The Tide have not been lower than 3rd since 2008.

Nick Saban knew this was coming.  It’s been the same thing for several years now.  This is why he made a major staff overhaul.

The NFL guys are out, and he’s back to bringing in young, competitive recruiters.

After the 2015 season, Saban lost the following assistant coaches:

After the 2016 season, Saban lost these assistant coaches:

After this season, Saban lost these assistant coaches:

 

For 2018, Saban has brought in much younger talent to Tuscaloosa.  This is what the Alabama coaching staff looks like right now, minus a defensive line coach (which has not been filled yet).

The fact of the matter is that the coaching staff in Tuscaloosa was not going after players as hard as younger, hungrier coaches.  And Saban made the changes required to make sure that things will change for next season.

Currently, Alabama is ranked #8 at 247sports.com for the 2019 recruiting class… with only 4 recruits.  One 5 star, and three 4 stars.  We’ll see how much things change with a little continuity at the offensive and defensive coordinator positions, so long as those guys are not hired away from Tuscaloosa.

Gary Segars

Gary began his first website in 1998 as a sophomore in high school, writing reviews of cds and live shows in the Memphis area. He became editor of his college newspaper, then moved towards a career in music.He started the infamous MemphisTider.com blog during the 2006 football season, and was lucky enough to get into blogging just before the coaching search that landed Nick Saban at Alabama. The month and a half long coaching search netted his site, which was known for tracking airplanes, over 1 million hits in less than 90 days. The website introduced Gary to tons of new friends, including Nico and Todd, who had just started the site RollBamaRoll.com.After diving into more than just Alabama news, Gary started up his first installment of WinningCuresEverything.com in 2012. After keeping the site quiet for a while, it was started back up in April 2016. Gary then joined forces with high school friend Chris Giannini and began a podcast during the 2016 football season that runs at least 2 times a week, focusing on college football, NFL football, and sports wagering, and diving into other sports and pop-culture topics.E-mail: gary@winningcureseverything.com Twitter: @GaryWCE