Rough recruiting week offers yet another reminder that Kalen DeBoer is no Nick Saban

It's always funny to think about Nick Saban's recruiting pitches to top-flight prospects. In my head, Saban would go into the homes of 5-star recruits and say something like, "Do you like winning? Do you want to win a National Championship? Do you want to go to the NFL? Okay, then come to Alabama," and then he would leave and the kid would commit the next day.

I'm sure the reality was a little more nuanced than that, but that's really all Saban needed to do — he built a machine at Alabama.

That machine certainly hasn't died under head coach Kalen DeBoer — the Tide are ranked No. 7 in the country right now, primed for another College Football Playoff berth — but the recruiting success that Saban had might not come so easy under DeBoer... until he wins a National Championship or two.

Just this week, Alabama watched three of its top recruits from the upcoming Class of 2025 flip to other schools. Of course, when a coach like Saban leaves a program, players who he recruited are bound to head elsewhere; that's not a new phenomenon.

Even after the exodus of recruits when Saban announced his retirement, Alabama still held the distinction of No. 1 recruiting class in the country. But in the past week, Alabama has lost not one, not two but three ESPN 300 recruits, the most recent one being Anthony Rogers, a running back who ESPN ranked as the No. 4 back in the class.

Rogers follows wide receiver Caleb Cunningham and linebacker Dawson Merritt as players who decommitted from Alabama this week, dropping the Tide out of the top recruiting class, into either third or fourth, depending on which site you reference.

Rogers didn't flip to another school, instead he opened back up his recruiting — although he said he will be committing somewhere else. Cunningham flipped his choice to Ole Miss, while Merritt will head to Nebraska.

Alabama is still going to have plenty of star freshmen on its roster next year; nine of the top 100 players in ESPN's rankings are headed to Tuscaloosa. Still, losing top talent, especially to other SEC schools, stings a bit.

Kalen DeBoer doesn't have the pull of Nick Saban yet

A few weeks ago, things in Alabama seemed more tenuous than they had been in years. A loss to Vanderbilt and a near-loss to South Carolina had Tide fans ready to write the eulogy of this program. A few weeks later, things have settled down considerably and the hype train is rolling once more.

Still, the number of commits deciding to leave Alabama for schools that are historically far less successful is a clear sign that DeBoer's Alabama doesn't have quite the pull yet that Saban's had. It's hard to tell exactly how much different DeBoer's recruiting pitch will be from Saban's, but the ole' "I won a National Championship in my first year as a coach here," pitch would probably work pretty well if DeBoer can lead this team back to the promised land.