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Rivals just made Oregon beating out Alabama for 5-star Tank Jones even worse

This recruiting loss continues to be a bummer.
ByBraulio Perez|
Oct 19, 2024; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer speaks with an official during the first quarter against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images
Oct 19, 2024; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer speaks with an official during the first quarter against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images | Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

We hate to beat a dead horse, but no one, and we mean no one is happy about 5-star EDGE Tank Jones spurning Alabama football to commit to Oregon. This was a huge recruiting win for the Ducks and a loss for the Tide that left people fuming.

Leave it to Rivals' Hayes Fawcett to make things a bit worse for everyone. This week, Fawcett posted his biggest recruiting winners of the summer. On one hand, great news came in for Kalen DeBoer, as Alabama checked in at No. 2.

The bad news? Oregon was No. 1 and there's no question that the Jones commitment helped the Ducks and Dan Lanning be at the top of the list. What really hurts the Crimson Tide faithful is that Jones is from Alabama, yet he has chosen to move to Eugene instead of Tuscaloosa:

Alabama has still been dominant recruiting this summer with 5-star commits

Again, losing Jones does hurt, but don't forget for a second that DeBoer has been on fire over the past couple of months landing big-name recruits. Need a reminder of that? We'll go ahead and give it to you in 5-star fashion.

In late June, Xavier Griffin, the No. 2 LB in the country, committed to the Tide. In addition to Griffin, Alabama received pledges from fellow 5-star talents Cedarian Morgan, Jireh Edwards and Ezavier Crowell.

DeBoer and Alabama were able to beat out a high number of other powerhouses for all of those commitments too. Right now, the Tide hold the No. 4 overall recruiting class in the country for 2026 and there's still plenty of time to keep on moving up in the rankings.

There are already plenty of top targets who have scheduled their visits to campus for this fall too. Posting some strong wins at home will help DeBoer bring in even more top prospects. That will also help people forget all about losing Jones to Oregon. With that said, he hasn't signed with the Big Ten side yet, so a potential flip can't be ruled out either.

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