Tomorrow’s All-American: Alabama Crimson Tide Recruiting

The Alabama Crimson Tide recruiting class for 2012 is shaping up to be fantastic. This year’s class is loaded from top to bottom with elite prospects from around the country, and some of the very best under-the-radar players.

One of Alabama’s strengths this season has been the offensive line. Senior center William Vlachos and junior left tackle Barrett Jones are considered the best in the country at their respective positions. Vlachos will certainly be taken in this year’s NFL draft, and the jury is still out on Barrett Jones’ intentions; he is projected as a first round selection if he decides to come out early.

A team simply does not replace two guys that have contributed so much to the team for as long as these two guys have without having some growing pains. This week we focus on two recruits expected to do big things in the future for the Crimson Tide’s offensive line.

In March Alabama received its first verbal commitment from an offensive lineman for the class of 2012. Brandon Greene is a 6-foot-5, 296 pound left tackle from Cedar Grove (Georgia) High School, and he is on the verge of being a five-star player.

Brandon is regarded as the fourth-best player at his position in the entire country, and his most appealing asset is his flexibility. Greene is quick and explosive off the ball. He’s a very strong kid and carries his weight as good as anyone I’ve seen his size. He looks more like a big tight end than he does a 300 pound lineman, and he gets down field fast enough to block second level defenders.

Greene displays great foot and hand placement and excels at run blocking as well as pass blocking. He is very heads up and intense on the field, doesn’t take plays off and is always looking for someone to run over until the whistle blows. Brandon is a very solid commitment today and will be a big addition to this class, but that wasn’t always the case.

This summer he was contacted by his home state school as well as cross-state rival Auburn. There were several desperate attempts by those coaches to sway Greene away from the Tide, and they did the best they could to paint Alabama in a negative light. He was shown false depth charts and was told there was a great chance he would be buried in the Alabama depth chart for several years.

After meeting with the coaches and being enlightened on the facts of the situation, he realized that Georgia and Auburn would say anything to make Alabama look bad in order to gain his services, and he cut all contact with those schools following a media statement re-affirming his commitment to Alabama.

The closest player Greene compares to would be last year’s prize recruit Cyrus Kouandijo. The two are very similar in size and athleticism, with Greene being a bit more athletic and Cyrus being a bit more physical. Brandon Greene fits the mold of the types of players Alabama has put in the NFL for years, and if he stays healthy he will undoubtedly be headed there as well.

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Three hours before the Tide squared off against LSU, Alabama picked up its twentieth commitment of the 2012 class, and the biggest of them all. Standing 6-foot-6 and weighing in at an intimidating 355 pounds, Brandon Hill of George’s Independent School in Collierville, Tennessee is literally the biggest prospect in the class.

Hill is one of the most intriguing prospects in recent memory due to the struggles he has fought through to get where he is now. Growing up in one of the more impoverished, gang-infested areas of Memphis, Hill fought to stay focused on his future and make a better life for himself. Following his tenth-grade year, Hill began to garner interest from major college programs around the country. He transferred to a private school last year with the help of his mentor and has exceeded even his own expectations. After impressing Alabama coaches at the offensive line camp last summer, Hill received a scholarship offer from Nick Saban.

Hill immediately catches your attention with his sheer size, and he carries his weight very well. Last year Hill played at 380 pounds and was determined to come back lighter and in better shape. He has great athleticism for a guy his size. Hill actually plays on offense and defense, rarely coming out to rest. Like all the prospects Saban covets, Hill has great foot movement and balance for a big man. He will need to develop better hand technique, but that shouldn’t prove to be a problem. If a player the size of Hill can dominate without coming out of the game to rest, he will see vast improvement when he is solely focused on one position.

Brandon is very similar to current right tackle DJ Fluker, in terms of how well he moves for a big guy, and probably has better footwork at this stage of his development. He is a bulldozer in run blocking and fits right in the offensive scheme Alabama runs. He’s adequate in his pass blocking and will only improve as time goes on. Hill may only be looked at as a three-star prospect, but a lack of playing time due to transferring is the only reason. The sky is the limit for this mammoth lineman, and with the struggles and triumphs he has gone through, you can’t help but pull for a guy like that.

Come on back next Wednesday and we’ll have two of the very best Tide commitments from the home state of Alabama.