It's a strategy and approach that differs a bit from how Saban handled things, yet is proving to yield similar results... top 5 recruiting classes. It's a system that's been developed by DeBoer and Morgan during their time together and tweaked and improved as they've dealt with rising issues like NIL and the transfer portal. And while DeBoer hasn't been in one spot long enough (yet) to really see the long term results, it's pretty clear to see that much like under Saban, recruiting isn't going to be an issue under this regime. I'll sorta give the whole overview as I understand it, but as it pertains to team culture, it's all about having a good idea of the type of person they are bringing into the program so that there are fewer surprises (and issues) down the road. They believe building strong relationships during the recruiting process is the key to that.
While there is much more to it than this, here are the basics as it was relayed to me by someone inside the building who is very familiar with how the recruiting plan works...
This staff under DeBoer narrows their overall recruiting board down to a smaller pool of players than they did previously under Saban. This was DeBoer’s and Morgan’s philosophy from UW. They concentrate on that smaller pool of players and hammer the relationship building part of it. That’s something that’s harder if not impossible to do with a much larger group of recruits. They also don’t add new recruits to their board after the month of April (without some extreme extenuating circumstances), another break from the Saban philosophy. Building relationships is that important to them.
As it pertains to NIL/roster management, on their big board, they have positions slotted out with how much they are willing to pay (rev share and NIL) at each position and they don’t go beyond that set number. They believe their formula allows them to sign enough high end/elite players while also supplementing the class with lower ranked and lesser recruited/overlooked players. Those are players they have thoroughly evaluated and feel are underrated players that can be developed in the system who won’t bolt after a year or two on the bench, thanks in part to those strong relationships and trust that is built. But it’s the strong relations they build that they think helps get many of those guys, plus they have a better feel for the type of player/person they are getting since they’ve invested so much time in them.
Lastly, an effort is made to get them committed earlier (even if just privately) and then spend the late summer and fall on strengthening and cultivating those relationships (hosting them when possible, using their visits, going to their games, staying in constant touch, etc.) while starting strong on the next year's crop of recruits and not wasting time chasing commitments down all the way to NSD.
I feel like I've typed the word "relationship(s)" about 30 times in this post... but that is at the core of their overall strategy and efforts. Also, and I want to be clear here, while in some ways this staff recruits differently than Saban and his staffs did, that doesn't mean one way is necessarily better than the other. They are different paths that, at least in terms of recruiting, lead to the same red X on the map.
