Technical Tidbits 2/2: Tech inks 2017 recruiting class, ‘Bama does ‘Bama things

Signing day came and went without any major headaches for Georgia Tech’s 2017 recruiting class, as all 24 commits signed without issue. Tech didn’t pick up any more signees yesterday, but that was to be expected given that the final two or three guys on the big board all seemed like longshots from the get-go. As it stands, this class is almost certainly the strongest of the Paul Johnson era from top to bottom. Featuring four four-star recruits (per Rivals) and maybe a couple more if you cherry-pick from ESPN or 247Sports, the group from this cycle finished just outside the top-40 recruiting classes — tied with TCU at No. 41. That is good for 9th in the ACC.

No signing day would be complete without some ugliness from the SEC, of course. This year it came in the form of Alabama, which locked down the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation with 28 total commits and somehow convinced a four-star linebacker who ranks among the top 300 players in the nation to take a grayshirt. This particular player, who will probably post a picture with his brand new Mercedes pretty soon, is named Jarez Parks and had offers from just about every major school in the South, if not the country. Nick Saban just doesn’t play nice. You absolutely could not pay me to believe that there wasn’t some deal worked out behind the scenes here. He had the option to go anywhere for free and decided to pay his own way at Alabama? Sure.

Dabo Swinney did a nice job of explaining why it doesn’t make sense that Alabama can sign 25 players year after year in the article above, albeit without mentioning ‘Bama by name. Swinney’s comments originated because he was trying to defend the small size of his current class, but the fact is that it just isn’t mathematically possible to accommodate the players that Alabama attempts to without pushing guys out and doing other generally immoral and likely illegal (illegal to the NCAA, that is) things.

By the way, former Georgia Tech commit Joseph Bulovas took a blueshirt to go to Alabama. For those unacquainted with this particular shirt color, it essentially allows Alabama to exceed 25 players for the recruiting cycle by deferring Bulovas’ scholarship to next year. The basic premise is that Bulovas , the nation’s top kicker, will be a walkon who was technically not recruited by ‘Bama prior to his commitment.