Nick Saban pre Sugar Bowl

Is Nick Saban getting an unfair bump in the recruiting rankings? (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

(Brynn Anderson, AP)

Even Nick Saban thinks there could be a "Bama bump" in recruiting rankings.

"Sometimes I don't know what comes first in recruiting rankings, the cart or the horse," Saban told reporters in December. "When a guy gets recruited by what I'm going to call high profile programs, he gets ranked higher. That's where I question the validity of how accurate some of those things may be."

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College football fans have been arguing the same thing for years on message boards. The theory goes that Alabama commits are unfairly bumped up in recruiting rankings for a variety of reasons. At a subconscious level it makes sense, too. If a school like Alabama has consistent success on the field, why wouldn't it get an extra benefit on the players it targets during the recruiting process?

AL.com asked national recruiting experts at the four major recruiting services -- ESPN, Rivals, Scout and 247Sports -- about whether a "Bama bump" existed. Two of the four said it did.

Tom Luginbill, the national recruiting director for ESPN, believes in the "Bama bump." But he thinks it's predicated more on recruiting networks trying to appease subscribers than a nod to Nick Saban's track record.

"Keep in mind that a lot of these recruiting websites and resources are reliant upon revenue of a fan signing up for a team site," Luginbill says. "When that's the case and you have to drive up (subscription) sales, what do you think those sites are going to do? They are going to start pumping and priming players that are committed to their school or considering their school and place them above other players because they are trying to drive subscription sales.

"Anyone who says that isn't true is full of baloney."

ESPN no longer has subscription-based websites or message boards like its competitors. Luginbill believes it allows his staff to focus on the important stuff -- evaluating players -- and not worry about reporting rumors or dealing with needy subscribers.

Brandon Huffman, the director of recruiting for Scout.com, agrees in theory with Luginbill. He noted that Scout doesn't have a huge Alabama website and thus doesn't have much financial incentive to pump up undeserving players to drive sales. He thinks competitors could be doing it, though.

Says Huffman: "I think there might be a lot of truth to the financial incentive but eventually you are going to kill your own credibility if that's how you let your rankings and evaluations be skewed based on who the kid gets offered by."

The two biggest Alabama team sites are on Rivals.com and 247Sports. Conspiracy theorists love to point out that Shannon Terry, 247Sports' chief executive officer, is also a co-owner of BamaOnline, the Alabama team website on the recruiting network.

JC Shurburtt, a national recruiting analyst for 247Sports, believes Alabama's interest in a recruit doesn't have a tangible impact on the network's recruiting rankings. He takes into account Alabama's track record of sending players to the NFL, but says you can't bump a kid up solely because Alabama is interested. No school -- not even Alabama -- fills the bulk of its class with five-stars, let alone the entire class.

"We try to stay away from 'Oh Alabama offered, you're a four-star.' Shurburtt says. "Because that's not fair. Alabama has guys on its roster that are three-star talent -- everybody does. Every school has three and two-stars on the roster."

In its current class of 2015, Alabama has three three-stars, eight four-stars and five five-stars, according to 247Composite rankings. One of those three-stars, Hoover linebacker Christian Bell, was recently asked to grayshirt and will presumably enroll in 2016. Alabama has signed a minimum of three three-stars since 2012, the majority of which has yet to have a major impact in Tuscaloosa.

Mike Farrell, the national recruiting director for Rivals.com, also calls hogwash on the notion Alabama's recruiting class is unfairly inflated.

"It used to be the Notre Dame bump then the USC bump then the Florida bump and now it's the Bama bump," Farrell says. "Alabama right now is the most coveted offer out of any program in the country. There's no bump."

He points to Mekhi Brown dropping in the rankings after he committed to Alabama as one example of no bump existing. Alabama is great at early identifying top talent, according to Farrell, and that sometimes will lead his staff to re-evaluate the prospect to see if they missed something. One recent example is offensive lineman Richie Petitbon, who didn't initially impress Farrell but eventually the Rivals analyst realized he was "incredible."

Luginbill doesn't buy it.

He's seen too many prospects go from unranked to a high three-star or four-star after they commit to a Power 5 conference school. He believes it's pretty transparent the network didn't know about the prospect and simply "slapped on a two-star grade" and then quickly bumped up his ranking when he committed to a big-time program.

There's only one possible cause.

"It's to appease and please fanbases," he says. "It's not general across the board, but there are a select or handful of programs that you know are going to drive subscriptions sales and will have a high volume of devoted fans. That's where you are going to see a lot of that."