re: Since 2009, Saban has had 29 players drafted in the first round. 25 are on rosters

Alabama is NFLU

I will contend that Alabama has more players on it's team than any other that could have gone to the NFL that didn't.

If Mississippi State gets an NFL caliper player, he gets to play and often. At Bama, they may be riding the bench for years and never play. State gets 3 star guys to the NFL, hell Bama can't even get all of it's five star guys there.

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If Mississippi State gets an NFL caliper player, he gets to play and often. At Bama, they may be riding the bench for years and never play.

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Completely false. We have Freshmen play every year

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State gets 3 star guys to the NFL, hell Bama can't even get all of it's five star guys there.

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Alabama, unsurprisingly, signed the highest total of those (five star recruits) at 29. But that’s not the important number. To truly grade development you must observe the number of those recruits who became first-round picks. That’s the full college cycle of development — a choice prospect comes in and a highly-regarded NFL talent comes out.

Fourteen of those 29 eventually became a first-round pick in Tuscaloosa, a rate of 48.3 percent that doesn’t count six other Crimson Tide five-stars that were second-round picks.

For some needed perspective on that number, let’s look at how the other FBS teams fared.

Take away Alabama’s 29 five-star players from that window, and there are 212 five-star recruits. Some schools have had a lot (Florida State: 24) in that 2008-15 period, while others have had just one (13 different schools). Taken together, the number of first-round picks from that five-star pool minus Alabama is 36.

That’s a hit rate of only 17 percent.

Think about that. Alabama’s five-star recruits are picked in the first round at a rate of 48.3 percent, while five-star recruits that go to any other school are selected at a 17-percent clip. A five-star prospect who picks Alabama is more than doubly likely be selected in the first round than if he goes anywhere else.