Buried behind bigger names such as Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Dont’a Hightower and Marcel Dareus, Damion Square often goes unmentioned when discussing Alabama’s illustrious 2008 class. However, the three-star defensive lineman represents one of Nick Saban’s biggest wins at Alabama.

Square, a native of Houston, Texas, had previously been committed to Texas A&M but flipped to Alabama due in large part to Saban joining the Crimson Tide in 2007. It would be the first of many battles the Alabama head coach would win in the Lone Star State. “That was probably the first big one from the state of Texas to jump on the Nick Saban train at Alabama,” said BamaInsider senior recruiting analyst Andrew Bone. “A couple years later, they were able to get De’Andrew White which was a huge deal for them because that was a Rivals 100 kid from the Houston area.” Square and White are two of a total of 22 recruits Saban has pulled from Texas over the past 12 recruiting classes. Of that group, 13 have been players ranked as four-stars or higher, including three five stars in A’Shawn Robinson, Tony Brown and, most recently, Jaylen Waddle.

“Well, we think there’s a lot of great high school football players in Texas, a lot of great programs in the state of Texas,” Saban said. “They do a great job of developing players there. I think football is really important in that state, high school football especially. “So we have recruited a lot of players. We’ve had some luck in getting some good players. I think you know who they are. And obviously we’re going to continue to recruit that area really hard and, hopefully, we’ll be able to get some future players that will be able to benefit our program as well.” Saban’s Lone Star invasion has especially taken off in recent years as he landed 12 Texas signees in his past four classes. Alabama’s current roster features 10 Texas natives on scholarship, highlighted by names such as Waddle, Deionte Thompson and Jalen Hurts. However, that wasn’t always the case. A five-year probational period all but wiped out the Crimson Tide’s footprint in Texas as Alabama signed just two Texan players from 2002-06. Fortunately for Alabama, one of those players was three-star quarterback Greg McElroy, who was previously committed to Texas Tech. McElroy went on to start two seasons for Alabama, leading the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season in 2009, capped off by a 37-21 victory over none other than the University of Texas in the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. Alabama’s national title victory over Texas marked the beginning of a period of decline for the Longhorns. After nine straight 10-win seasons, Texas finished a dismal 5-7 the following year. The Longhorns have yet to record double-digit wins since. “Texas started to fumble a little bit, and things weren’t going so well,” Bone said. “The top kids in the state of Texas were starting to look elsewhere.” That opened the door for Saban and Alabama to strike. Saban landed his first Texas four-star in White, who signed following Alabama’s national title in 2010. Three years later, he’d land an even bigger prize in Robinson, a five-star defensive lineman and the No. 2 player in the state of Texas. Once a Longhorns commit, Robinson, a Fort Worth, Texas native, started developing an interest in the Crimson Tide after watching Alabama dismantle Michigan 41-14 inside of Dallas Cowboys Stadium in nearby Arlington, Texas during the 2012 season. “When Alabama comes and invades an entire town for a couple days with recruits there it doesn’t matter if they are seniors or freshmen, they remember seeing the fans there and the environment,” Bone said. “Kids see that and the start paying closer attention to Alabama because of that.”

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