Alabama's recruiting Class of 2017 is one of the best ever (2024)

When Najee Harris stepped on the plane in San Antonio fresh off the U.S. Army All-American Game bound for Birmingham with his good friend Tua Tagovailoa in tow, it ended the back-and-forth, Alabama-or-Michigan drama of where the top-ranked running back from California was going to school.

It also cemented Alabama’s status as the No. 1 recruiting class in 2017, one of the all-time greatest in recruiting history. When that class was fully signed and on campus in Tuscaloosa, one assistant coach on that Alabama staff, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We should all be fired if we don’t play for multiple national championships with this class.”

Monday night marks the third trip to the national title game for the remaining members of the 2017 recruiting class, as No. 1 Alabama (12-0) will meet No. 3 Ohio State (7-0) in the College Football Playoff championship in Miami. The class won a national title as freshmen in 2017 against Georgia, then lost to Clemson in 2018.

There are times in history when a collection of talent coalesces in such a way that expectations can’t help but be affected. This was one of those times.

There are no guarantees, though. Only educated guesses. Sometimes they’re right — Shaquille O’Neal joining with Kobe Bryant for the Los Angeles Lakers to form a dynasty in the early 2000s. And sometimes they’re wrong — Stephon Marbury not sticking around to see what could’ve been with Kevin Garnett for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the late 1990s.

But sometimes you just know. That’s the general feeling the Alabama coaching staff had when it signed the Class of 2017.

“Best class ever,” the assistant coach said.

It included six five-star players in the 247Sports Composite, including Harris, Tagovailoa, Alex Leatherwood, Dylan Moses, Jerry Jeudy and LaBryan Ray. It included five of the top 36 players drafted in April. It included four players who finished in the top five of Heisman Trophy voting in either 2018 (Tagovailoa) or this season (Harris, DeVonta Smith and Mac Jones). It included almost any major individual award a player can win.

Its curriculum vitae is unmatched, but there’s one more line it would like to insert: another national championship. The class got one early on, in a dramatic walk-off victory, as Tagovailoa connected with Smith for a 41-yard touchdown pass on second-and-26 in overtime. Those players were blown out a year later in the title game and now want nothing more than to assert their greatness in a way that may never be chipped away.

“Yeah, I look on that class a lot,” said Leatherwood, the starting left tackle, who won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s best interior lineman on Thursday night, the sixth in the program’s history. “I feel like we’re the greatest (class) of all time, if you ask me. We had a lot of talent. But aside from us all being talented, things like that, we’re all hard workers. And we all had a common goal in mind, and that was to win a national championship and be the best players that we could be. And that’s why we came here.”

Leatherwood played a large role in the first national title that class claimed, replacing injured Jonah Williams at left tackle in the second half of the title game.

That was the first sign of how special that class was: how many players contributed to winning that national championship as freshmen. Aside from Leatherwood being forced into action, one of the most famous coaching decisions of all time involved Nick Saban benching Jalen Hurts, later a Heisman Trophy finalist at Oklahoma, for Tagovailoa, a true freshman.

When Saban opted for Tagovailoa to take the field in the second half, he opened himself up to immense criticism if the decision went sideways. Instead, Alabama erased a 13-0 deficit and won in overtime 26-23. It did so because of what Tagovailoa did. That ground has been well covered.

But the offense also heavily leaned on Harris in that game, too. Harris carried the ball only six times — all in the fourth quarter — but he averaged 10.7 yards per rush in a huge fourth quarter.

Then there’s the legend of “Mr. Second-and-26,” Smith. He has grown tired of reliving that day, but considering its magnitude, it’ll never go away.

Neither will the bond of that class.

“A lot of us, we went to a lot of camps together,” Smith said. “We talked to each other. Some of us kind of knew where others were leaning to and some of us were already kind of committed here. And it was just everybody recruiting each other, just building the relationship. And I feel like that’s what made us so close, is before we even got here, the relationships that we had. Just how close everybody was and everybody’s dedication to this team, everybody wanting to come in and put in the work.”

That so many players from that class — so much of the upper-shelf talent — are still around for their senior seasons is a story in itself.

Leatherwood was caught in a tackle-heavy class of draftable players last year. He also wanted to hone his game more. Smith wasn’t the biggest wide receiver prospect in that recruiting class, and Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III were top-15 picks last spring. Harris’ return was truly a surprise. Much like with his recruitment, he was tight-lipped. And much like his recruitment, he made no announcement. He just showed up in Tuscaloosa again.

Those three formed the foundation of Alabama’s historic offense. Well, those three and the three-star quarterback from that class whom no one knew much about until this year.

Mac Jones, who originally verbally committed to Kentucky, was once the odd man out behind Hurts and Tagovailoa. All three were Heisman Trophy finalists.

Jones, who finished third in this year’s Heisman voting, won the Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm awards. That’s not bad for a scrawny recruit who was an afterthought in the 2017 class behind Tagovailoa.

He didn’t view it that way, though. He had an unwavering belief in himself.

“I knew they were all special, even before we got here at camps and stuff, all those guys — Smitty, Ruggs, Jeudy — throwing to them at camps, really cool opportunity,” Jones said. “Obviously, you can look at that class (and) be like, ‘Wow.’ Right now, there’s a few guys in the NFL, a few guys that will be in the NFL probably next year. And it’s really cool to be part of that class. I was kind of the second quarterback. And obviously, I’ve learned from Tua and learned from everybody in that class. It’s been really cool to be a part of that growth.”

Jones’ draft stock isn’t known, but there’s a good chance Leatherwood, Smith and Harris could be selected in the first round. If the pieces fall into place, Jones could too. If all four are picked in the first round, that would be eight first-rounders from one recruiting class. Those assistants who put the class together knew what they were talking about.

“We felt we would have the best roster in the country for the next four years,” the former assistant said.

Another assistant was more succinct, but just as firm in his analysis: “The best recruiting class of the Saban era.”

Those are strong words, considering the 2008 recruiting class — headlined by Mark Ingram, Julio Jones, Mark Barron, Marcell Dareus, Barrett Jones, Dont’a Hightower, Terrence Cody and Courtney Upshaw — has long held that title. There’s now a feeling the 2008 class turned the Crimson Tide program around and the 2017 class elevated it to unseen levels.

Saban doesn’t deal in those arguments. He rarely makes comparisons and he loathes expectations, at least publicly. Asked if he knew what he had in that class, he turned the question down.

“I don’t ever think of it that way,” Saban said. “We just try to take the guys from wherever they are and try to develop them so that they can be the best that they can be. And there’s some guys that we have very high hopes for and think are going to be great players that don’t really pan out, and there’s other guys that become great players when you really didn’t think that they might become great players.

“So I think we just take each individual player and try to help them develop personally, academically and athletically so that they can be the best version of themselves and go out and compete and create value for themselves as football players.”

The five-star players have largely worked out. Harris, Leatherwood and Jeudy were as advertised. The other two — Moses and Ray — have had injuries derail their careers. Just this week, Moses said he’s dealt with knee pain all year after severely injuring it before the 2019 season.

Moses’ recruitment was eventful. He made headlines as an eighth-grader when he earned multiple Power 5 offers. As a Louisiana native, many assumed he’d go to LSU. But he didn’t, and there were some hurt feelings.

At some point, the class started to recruit itself, the momentum and big names becoming a snowball too big to stop.

“That was one of the main reasons I committed to Alabama,” Moses said. “I wanted to be part of a great team and be surrounded by great competition. That was something that I looked at before I committed. And I knew that us all coming together would be something would be beneficial later on down the road.”

If the class was an unstoppable snowball, what got it started? Look no further than one of the best recruiting staffs Alabama’s ever had. Aside from Saban, who’s widely considered one of the best recruiters ever, others were relentless. To get an accurate picture of the staff, consider the coaches who first started recruiting the athletes and those who wrapped them up. To do that, look at the coaching staffs in 2016 and 2017.

They included Jeremy Pruitt, Mario Cristobal, Tosh Lupoi, Mike Locksley, Lane Kiffin, Billy Napier, Derrick Ansley and Joe Pannunzio. That’s a staggering number of quality recruiters, which is why the class ended up the way it did.

“I should receive a residual check,” the first assistant joked.

Defensive lineman Phidarian Mathis looks back and shakes his head.

“I’m just proud to say that I’m a part of that,” Mathis said.

Harris, who notably hates attention, has a different viewpoint of it. But he hopes his four years end the same way they started, just like the rest of his class.

“Going back to recruitment, I didn’t like it. It’s too much attention, way too much attention for me,” Harris said. “I think I just showed up here. I just showed up. I didn’t even tell them I was coming here. I just showed up. I was tired of it. I popped up at the airport with Tua. And I didn’t even know all the recruits that were here.

“So first day of practice, I saw all these recruits I knew in high school. I look around, I’m like, ‘Man, we’ve actually got a pretty good recruiting class here.’ I mean, obviously, it showed up in the championship game freshman year and now ever since. I think it took off. Coach Saban did a really good job of recruiting. And hopefully, we get to bring one home, another natty home.”

(Top photo of Nick Saban, Najee Harris and Alex Leatherwood: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)