New Tennessee football commitment Brandon Cross made a bold statement by comparing the Volunteers to the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Talk about making headlines. Tennessee football recruit Brandon Cross committed to the Vols on Monday.
On Wednesday, the 2018 Orlando, Fla. cornerback prospect out of Jones High School was putting his new program on a level nobody else would.
According to an article by Ryan Green of Gridiron Now, Cross said Tennessee football is ‘kind of like the new Alabama’ while talking about the Vols’ momentum on the recruiting trail.
Here’s the exact quote from the article.
"“It’s cool because Tennessee is evolving. They are kind of like the new Alabama, but we are just going to stay humble and keep on working.”"
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On the surface that’s a bit crazy. Tennessee football hasn’t beaten Alabama in 10 years, and even when the Vols were at the height of their recruiting under Butch Jones, the Tide were higher.
Also, it’s a bold statement for a 5’10” 185-pound two-star recruit on Rivals to make. To be fair, Cross could turn out to be a great cornerback.
You never know with players.
And on top of that, delving deeper, it’s not as crazy for this year. Right now, the Tide’s recruiting class is not even in the Top 50. They only have three commitments overall. The ranking is next to last in the SEC.
However, this requires even more nuance. After all, Alabama has had the No. 1 recruiting class in nine of the past 11 years and seven of the past eight years, including the past two years and far and away the best class coming in this year.
The other years, by the way, were the No. 2 ranked class in 2015 and the No. 5 ranked class in 2010.
So Saban has built such a rock solid and amazing program that he could skip two years of recruiting and still be in great shape.
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Simply put, it’s crazy to think of Tennessee football and Alabama football even being close to the same level right now.