Leaving FSU Was Hard
Ronnie Cottrell was arguably the nation’s most successful recruiting coordinator at a school that has made an annual routine of finishing among the nation’s top five in the polls. Florida State is where Cottrell began a string of seven consecutive national top-five recruiting classes, it is where he got his first real coaching break at the major college level. He won a national championship there, and was deeply rooted in the most talent-rich state in the nation.
Why leave Florida State?
"Truthfully, I didn’t think I wanted to leave at first," Cottrell said. "Coach [Bobby] Bowden had been so good to me, had done so much for me, it was a tough, tough choice. But when I visited Alabama, coach DuBose convinced me that this was an opportunity that I absolutely could not pass on. I feel strongly that he will do some great things here. He loves this place like nobody else -- you can see it in his eyes and you can hear it in his voice -- and that’s the kind of person you want to coach for."
Said FSU coach Bobby Bowden at the time of Cottrell’s decision to leave: "I’m certainly sad to see him go, because he has done a fabulous job here at Florida State."
A New Challenge
After a 4-7 season, DuBose hired Cottrell along with three other new assistants, and immediately made recruiting one of Cottrell’s priorities. Cottrell wasn’t immediately named recruiting coordinator, but took a hands-on approach only six weeks before National Signing Day.
"It was a bit difficult," Cottrell said. "There were a few outstanding players that I’d developed a good relationship with at FSU that I of course had to stop recruiting. That was an agreement I had with Coach Bowden. But there were a lot of very good players that had already been recruited at Alabama when I came on, so I had work to do. I watched a great deal of film in a very quick fashion."
Alabama’s recruiting year had already gotten off to a strong start before Cottrell’s arrival in mid-December, but Cottrell had much to do with a strong finish -- several of Bama’s January commitments said Cottrell was a key factor in their decisions. Junior College signee Canary Knight -- a native of Tallahassee -- was among those.
Q&A
AJ: With so much emphasis placed on in-home recruiting and the ability of coaches to develop good relationships with players, the art of actual evaluations is often under-appreciated. Talk about the importance of evaluations.
RC: There are three parts to good recruiting. Number one, you have to have a plan, a good plan to stick with from start to finish. The other two parts have to do with evaluations. You’ve first got to determine who you have an interest in, who you will pursue. You break it down into a workable list for all the coaches, and you establish your real targets. Evaluations are the key. Everyone knows that sometimes the big-name recruits don’t work out and sometimes the best college players aren’t quite as highly recognized as recruits. For that reason, you try to judge things with an even eye. As far as what you look for, speed is very important.
AJ: What area have you been assigned to recruit.
RC: I’m recruiting in South Alabama, Southern Mississippi and Northwest Florida.
AJ: Discuss the importance of the Mobile area, which is part of your recruiting zone.
RC: Certainly, the Mobile area has put some wonderful players out, but every coach has an important area. Coach Stubbs has to recruit well in Tuscaloosa, coach Harbison has to recruit his area well, it’s a team concept.
AJ: Do you hope to reverse Mobile’s reputation as Auburn country?
RC: I don’t think Alabama has done poorly in that area. Sherman Williams was a great player here and he’s from Mobile, for instance. And Alabama has signed a few from there since Sherman.
AJ: Discuss Alabama’s tradition.
RC: I don’t know that there is another school in the country with as much power in its name as Alabama. The name is known everywhere. Twelve national championships have come through here, which I think is more than the rest of the conference combined. There is a lot to sell here.
AJ: Does that name recognition mean that the program recruits itself?
RC: No. We live in what I like to call the MTV generation. The kids want to be recruited, they want to feel welcome. Certainly, there are some players that will grow up as real fans, and want to play at Alabama all their lives, but for the most part, you’ve got to actively go out and get ‘em.
AJ: Discuss the adjustment from the talent base in Florida, which is probably the best in the nation, to the smaller talent base in Alabama.
RC: Florida was both our recruiting base and our home state at Florida State. We got a very high percentage of our players right there in Florida. We won’t be able to get as high a percentage of players from Alabama, because the recruiting base at this school goes beyond the state line. There is good talent in this state and we will work hard to get the players we want from here, but there will have to be some branching out. The recruiting base here will be, of course, Alabama, as well as Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Northwest Florida. That’s not to say we won’t recruit anywhere else because we will. But a very large percentage of the players will come from those areas.
AJ: Does the larger recruiting base at Alabama make things more difficult that an in-state recruiting base like you had at FSU?
RC: No, not at all. Follow me on this one: The distance from Tuscaloosa to Jackson, MS is shorter than a trip from Tallahassee to Orlando. The distance from Tuscaloosa to, say, Nashville, TN is shorter than it is from Tallahassee to Miami. So the recruiting base isn’t any bigger, it’s just that it carries into other states. A lot of the prospects think in terms of miles from home rather than in-state and out-of-state.
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