There was no more highly anticipated official visit on the calendar this summer than 5-star WR Monshun Sales' trip to Tuscaloosa this past weekend. Sales has long been at the tip top of Alabama's recruiting board for the 2027 class.
Sales is originally from Alabama and carried the nickname "Bama" through his career playing high school football in Indianapolis. He always dreamed of playing for the Crimson Tide, but things are never as cut and dry in the NIL era as they were in the beforetimes. Making matters more complicated is the emergence of a football power in his new home state of Indiana. Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers are coming off the program's first national championship, and they bludgeoned Alabama in the Rose Bowl along the way.
After his visit to Indiana last month, the Hoosiers started trending, carrying significant momentum in his recruitment. But Kalen DeBoer and the Crimson Tide got their chance to make a pitch to Sales face-to-face over the weekend, and they tugged on his heartstrings while doing so.
Alabama made its pitch, and now it will sit back and wait while Sales goes through the official visit process with trips to Texas, Ohio State, and Miami still on deck for the 5-star receiver. The Crimson Tide appears to have made a significant move in his recruitment, however, and there's a lot of buzz around DeBoer and his program coming out of the visit.
Sales confirmed that buzz in an interview with 247's Brett Greenberg.
Monshun Sales says that Alabama and Indiana his top two schools
"It really felt unreal," Sales said to Greenberg about his visit. "I grew up in Alabama. I grew up thinking about that all the time, and it was finally there. It was a 'I am here' moment. I feel like 'Bama and Indiana are my top two schools at the moment."
It would have been disappointing not to hear something like that about Sales after his visit. It's important to remember that he's still riding his official visit high, and there are always significant ebbs and flows during the recruiting process. Texas, Ohio State, and Miami will give him plenty to think about in the coming weeks when he takes his visits there, and Indiana will certainly keep pushing as well.
But it is clear coming out of his visit that anyone who was ready to write Alabama off in this race would be doing so prematurely. The Crimson Tide is 100% a factor, and they are putting on the full-court press from all corners to try and convince Sales to come home.
Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but one thing will be true no matter how things finish: DeBoer and his staff are doing all they can do to try and lure the 5-star to Tuscaloosa.
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