Alabama football is a national recruiting brand. One of the keys to what Nick Saban has built in Tuscaloosa since 2007 is his staff’s ability to walk into any high school in any state in America, plus a few other countries, and walk out with a commitment.

The 2023 Crimson Tide roster features players from Texas, Florida, Ohio, California, New Jersey, Wisconsin and more. However, it also includes 54 players listed as being from the state of Alabama.

Out of the 140 players on the roster, that’s 38.57% from in-state. That number puts Alabama eighth in the league in roster percentage from its home state.

Each player on a roster in the SEC was counted, along with the hometown listed on their team’s website. That’s a somewhat imperfect measure, as it doesn’t always accurately count which state they went to high school in.

How the schools are doing at pulling the top talent from the prep ranks of their home states will be covered later. As far as teams that most rely on in-state talent to fill their rosters go, Texas A&M sits far ahead of the rest of the league at 60.47%.

The Aggies are followed by Florida (54.23%) and Georgia (53.73%) as schools with a majority of in-state talent on their rosters. LSU falls just short of that mark, fourth in the league at 49.57%.

When counting the total number of players with in-state hometowns, Alabama jumps up to fifth in the league. The Crimson Tide’s roster size is mostly to blame for the percentage being lower as UA had 140 players listed as of Tuesday, the largest roster in the league, beating Georgia out by six names.

Vanderbilt had the least home-state players on its roster, by both percentage (19.13%) and total (22). The Commodores are an outlier in multiple ways compared to the rest of the SEC, and roster construction is no different.

Ole Miss, which is known for relying on the transfer portal under head coach Lane Kiffin is second-last in the league with 22.58% of its roster hailing from Mississippi. Kentucky, which is one of the SEC’s least talent-rich states for recruiting, is third-last at 30.25%.

Alabama’s interstate rival Auburn sits ahead of the Tide at No. 6 in the SEC percentage-wise, with 42.02% of its roster coming from in-state. The Tigers, who carry 119 total players on the roster, actually have less players from Alabama than UA, with 50.

How much of Alabama’s top talent is the Tide taking?

Another way to look at in-state recruiting is by how much of the state’s top talent a school claims for itself. For this exercise, a blue-chip player will be considered as a four or five-star recruiting according to the 247Sports composite ratings.

From 2020 through 2023, Alabama landed 39.71% of those players from the Yellowhammer State. That’s fourth in the SEC, behind Arkansas (70%), South Carolina (44.44%) and Kentucky (45.45%).

The numbers, like many final scores over two seasons on the plains, were not particularly kind to former Auburn coach Bryan Harsin. Between 2020 and 2023, the Tigers landed only 14.71% of the in-state four and five-star recruits.

The stat is solely based on the 247Sports composite ratings and recruiting class rankings. It does not take into account the transfer portal or any other reason for those players no longer being on the rosters, just that they were part of the 2020 through 2023 recruiting classes.

Alabama is the only school in the category’s top five that shares its state with another SEC school, though South Carolina does have to deal with Clemson’s presence.

Besides the top four, only LSU (37.5) pulled in more than 30% of the four and five-star players in its state.

Vanderbilt once again sits dead last in the SEC, having not landed a single blue chip recruit out of the 45 in the state of Tennessee from the 2020 to 2023 recruiting classes. Its eastern rival, Tennessee, brought in 26.67% of them.

Other states that sat low in percentage of in-state blue chips landed included Florida (12.7%), Texas A&M (15.83%) and Georgia (17.83%). That changes with a look at the sheer number of four and five-star in-state prospects those schools took.

How many in-state four and five-star recruits did Alabama land?

Alabama landed 27 in-state four or five-star recruits from the 2020 through 2023 classes. That was good for fourth in the SEC.

The Crimson Tide came in well ahead of Auburn in that metric. The Tigers reeled in 10 such players during the same time period, seventh in the league.

Neither came anywhere near threatening the dominance of Texas A&M in that metric. The Aggies took 38 in-state blue chip recruits.

Florida came in second in the league with 32 in-state four and five-stars, while Georgia took third with 28, just one ahead of Alabama. The statistic hammers home the discrepancy in high school talent between some of the SEC’s states, with places like Georgia, Florida and Texas churning out far more blue chip players than Kentucky and Missouri.

Vanderbilt, as is its pattern here, finished last in the league with zero four or five-star players recruited from its own state over the last four classes. Kentucky, which had the second-highest percentage of in-state blue chips landed, doesn’t fare so well here, finishing second-last with just three names.

Arkansas finished well ahead of every other school in percentage, but fell to 11th in the league in sheer numbers, landing just seven in-state blue chips. South Carolina had a similar drop, from No. 3 in percentage landed to No. 9 in numbers, with eight in-state four or five-stars landed.

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