When Cade Foster first learned he was on Alabama's radar in 2009, it wasn't a Crimson Tide coach who clued him in on the program's interest. Rather it was a man from Burbank, Calif., Chris Sailer, relaying the message that Nick Saban was about to give him a call.

Roughly an hour later, the Alabama head coach was on the line with the high school junior from Southlake, Texas.

"He told me that he needed a kicker and their guy was about to graduate -- Leigh Tiffin," Foster recalled. Seconds later, Saban cut to the chase.

"We want to offer you a scholarship," he said.

At the time, Foster wasn't too aware of Alabama or its rich football tradition. But then again, Foster didn't get the impression Saban knew that much about him.

"That's basically how I got in the pipeline," Foster said. "It was totally outsourced. Nick deals with Chris."

Sailer is a kicker whisperer. He runs a number of camps, and along with Jamie Kohl he has become one of the two foremost experts on a position few football coaches invest much time in understanding.

In many ways, he has filled a void by identifying and then shepherding the best field-goal, point-after and kickoff specialists to major programs, including Alabama. Saban, one of the titans of the sport, has relied on Sailer to deliver him the most attractive prospects.

"He wants the whole package and the whole package is a guy who has NFL leg strength, who has proven his mental toughness over the years and we feel can handle the pressure at that level," Sailer said.

This year, that player is Joseph Bulovas, the top-rated placekicker in the country, according to Rivals.com. After Brandon Ruiz reneged on his commitment to the Tide, Bulovas pledged earlier this month that he would attend Alabama. He is the heir apparent to Adam Griffith, who has exhausted his eligibility after enduring a career marked by inconsistency and injuries.

In the eyes of many, Griffith and Foster didn't meet the expectations established when both were highly-touted recruits. Along with Corey Smith, a 2008 signee who would eventually transfer, they are Exhibits A and B in the case against Saban's ability to stack the deck at every position during his tenure at Alabama. Since Leigh Tiffin moved on following the 2009 season, kicker has been consistently among the weakest links within the program.

This past season, Griffith made three-fourths of his attempted field goals. His success rate was ranked 54th in the nation, whereas the defense was No. 1 in points allowed per game and the offense 16th in scoring.

Those units were full of athletes among the best at their individual positions coming out of high school. Then again, Griffith was the No. 2 kicker in the 2012 class, according to Rivals.com. Barton Simmons, the director of football scouting for 247Sports, recalled that Griffith "was as safe as a pick as there was in his class."

"But you don't know how a guy is going to develop in college," said Jake Elliott, a placekicker at Memphis who was a participant in the Senior Bowl this past week. "That's why you see a lot of these specialists coming out of smaller schools, per se, rather than the Alabamas. It's tough to tell how a kid is going to develop, how he is going to deal with pressure. It's definitely hard to assess."

Elliott wasn't offered his first scholarship until two weeks before signing day and North Dakota was the only other school looking to sign him. At one point, he even contemplated playing tennis in college. But Elliott went to Memphis and ended up becoming one of the most accomplished kickers in the country. In his junior year, he was a Lou Groza Award finalist and this past season he made 21 of the 26 field goals he attempted.

While Elliott's story is a interesting one, it's not unusual. New England's Stephen Gostkowski, a four-time Pro Bowler, once kicked at Memphis, too. The fact that the Tigers were able to land both Gostkowski and Elliott took a bit of luck. While Sailer said that certain schools have had success developing great specialists -- his alma mater of UCLA being one of them -- he also concedes that it "really is so random."

The flukiness of it all is a major reason why Alabama hasn't had a top kicker. It's not like Saban doesn't value the position. In fact, earlier this week he said, "I think specialists are really, really important, and I think they get taken for granted a lot."

But he can only devote so many resources to their development because the NCAA caps the number of full-time assistant coaches a school can employ at nine. In turn, not many programs -- even an organization as deep as Alabama -- can afford to earmark a spot for someone with expertise in kicking.

The last two special teams coaches for Alabama, Burton Burns and Bobby Williams, oversaw other position groups as well. When Foster was on campus, Williams could only advise him about how kicking related to the team's coverage schemes.

Foster, in turn, had to consult with experts outside the program, including former NFL players Chris Boniol and Morten Andersen, if he wanted to improve his technique or work on a specific skill. Foster's experience explains, in part, why Alabama hasn't been able to dominate recruiting at that position in the same way the Tide consistently does at others.

Alabama, like many other programs, depends on Sailer to identify the best prospects because his methodology helps eliminate the variables that make the assessment of kickers at the high school level so confounding.

"They really rely upon us," Sailer said. "For the most part, when it comes to on-the-field evaluation, they are going to pretty much lean on us for our opinion...A coach like Nick Saban is going to reach out to me and trust in my evaluation."

But he's not the only one. Sailer says he typically places more than 40 specialists on scholarship each year. Along with Kohl, he has been able to create a cottage industry because he's homogenized the recruiting process for those players -- removing the guesswork and giving the top programs an equal shot at securing the top prospects.

"I think the bottom line is in kicker recruiting, the field is leveled," Simmons said. "Alabama has no advantage over anyone else. They are successful on the recruiting trail because they put so many resources into it, watch so many films, and do such a good job on the evaluation process. But I think that with kickers, there is only so much Alabama can do to get an edge. There is only so much kicker film you can watch. There is only so much you can evaluate on a kicker without really knowing that kid's mental DNA and how he is going to respond to pressure-packed moments."

And Alabama, as most would agree, is not for the faint of heart. Its fan base is particularly demanding and at times unforgiving. Just ask Foster. He was besieged with criticism after he missed two field-goal attempts and had another one blocked in Alabama's excruciating loss to Auburn in the 2013 Iron Bowl.

Griffith was also harassed after he set in motion the infamous Kick Six play with his errant 57-yard try that fell into the arms of Chris Davis.

Foster, who was used to playing in front of big crowds at one of Texas' most prominent high school programs, said he could see how the fanaticism of the Tide's most ardent supporters could turn off some kickers.

"If you're not ready for it, if you're a player that is developing, you definitely don't want to be thrown into the fire there. with it being the top program in the country for several years," said Sailer. "By all means you are under the most pressure -- playing for a coach like Nick Saban, playing in the SEC, playing in huge games every week. There is a ton of pressure there. But again the guys who are ready for it, it's an advantage playing in those games. The NFL looks at that as being ready."

It does.

But consider this: Alabama has sent 338 players to the league, yet only four kicked consistently for their teams. The last one to do so in a regular-season game was Van Tiffin. And he played a shade more than a quarter of the 1987 strike season.

Whether Bulovas will have a chance to become the next to reach those heights is uncertain. After all, Simmons said, "It's just so tough to pick which of those guys are going to translate and which aren't."

Alabama has found that out the hard way. It's not for a lack of trying, however. As Sailer pointed out, "They still recruit the best."