Alabama football focusing on high school recruiting and roster retention over transfer portal

Alabama football has a focus on building its roster via the high school ranks over the transfer portal.

The Crimson Tide’s General Manager Courtney Morgan sat down with Front Office Sports recently, and he discussed the Tide’s approach to roster acquisitions.

Morgan feels success on the high school recruiting trail will lead to less reliance on the transfer portal.

“It all starts with high school recruiting,” said Morgan. “If you do a good job in high school recruiting, you don’t have as many holes in your roster to go fill in the portal and also just keeping a strong mind or strong emphasis on retention. If you recruit well in high school and your accurate with your evaluation on both the person and the player, retention is where most of your money wants to be spent.”

Alabama signed 19 recruits in Kalen DeBoer’s first official recruiting class with Morgan leading the effort. Only one of them transferred at the end of the 2025 season. Holding onto players acquired from the high school ranks will be a major focus for the Tide moving forward.

“You’ll see smaller recruiting class with more emphasis on retention,” Morgan said. “I think we have two really good recruiting classes my first two years here. We have been pretty spot on with our evaluations. So, we have a lot of young talent. So, when you have a lot of young talent, retention is probably the No. 1 goal in mind as you go into player acquisition.”

The forever-changing world of college athletics is one collegiate staff across the country will have to continue to adjust to.