In Reply to: Re: Saban was great and all. But to attribute enrollment increase to him posted by SehornBlew on January 12, 2024 at 10:13:34
at one point Tampa said, iirc, that Bama was raising it's academic profile and throwing money at out of staters to get better students into the school. So, maybe not all of those out of staters are paying out of state tuition.
Now, settle down Seahorn, settle down. Before you unload on me ... I agree with your overall point. I know at least three people with no connection to the Alabama, or the South generally, whose kids have gone to Alabama. I know, 3 is not a lot. But, given that I'm a hermit and don't know a lot of people, it's a good chunk of my acquaintances. (oddly or not, I don't think any of those kids finished at Alabama).
In coastal OC, there are tons of kids flocking to SEC schools. Couple of reasons - they can't get into UC's, or the more difficult CSU's. And, more importantly, they want that beautiful college campus big time football experience. Besides Alabama, the preferred destinations are weird. Ole Miss and Clemson. Have a friend who graduated from UCLA, got a Ph.D. and they were bragging that their daughter is rush chairman for her sorority at Ole Miss. Nother entrenched coastal OC guy sent me a clip of his kid doing the Hotty Totty (sp?) cheer. I have a friend that owns a rental property in Oxford. We were FB chatting and I mentioned how popular Ole Miss is around here. She responded "sooooooo many Californians, it's weird."
Oh, and people will argue that Ft. Worth isn't the South, but TCU is going off. Know two families with kids there, and see tons of TCU stickers around here.
So, ya, imo, there are a few elements at play. 1) Alabama is aggressively courting out of staters (per my recollection of what Tampa said), 2) there is a trend for kids to want to go to SEC schools (I know Clemson isn't SEC, but the girls that I've heard were going there - it's been all girls - probably don't). 3) people that are attracted to the SEC are going to be attracted to the school with by farrrr the best team over the years. 4) and this is a footnote, Bama is probably easier to get into than say Georgia or Florida.
The weird thing to me is there doesn't seem to be any big interest (around here) in LSU or Tennessee.
My point is that