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'Character, Quality Class' -- Saban Pleased With 27 Signees'Character, Quality Class' -- Saban Pleased With 27 Signees

'Character, Quality Class' -- Saban Pleased With 27 Signees

‘Character, Quality Class’ — Saban Pleased With 27 Signees

BATON ROUGE — LSU head football coach Nick Saban welcomes at least 27 new Tigers in the signing class of 2001 on Wednesday’s National Signing Day. Click on LSUsports.net for first-hand coverage of LSU newest signees.

Saban’s second recruiting class has been ranked in the top three by most major publications and may turn out to be the best in the nation this season. However, Saban emphasized that the true ranking of the class may not be known for years down the road.

Saban addressed the media in a press conference on the fifth floor of the LSU Athletic Building at 4 p.m. (CST) before making a speaking appearance at the Gridiron Club’s annual “Bayou Bash” held at the Argosy’s Atrium on Wednesday.

The National Letters of Intent began rolling in on the second floor of the Athletic Administration early on Wednesday morning, as the Tigers inked 20 newcomers before noon. By 2 p.m., that number jumped to 27.

LSU’s 2001 Football Signing Class Rankings

  • No. 1 by Max Emfinger of National Blue Chips based in Covington, La.
  • No. 2 by Allen Wallace of Laguna Beach, Calif.-based SuperPrep Magazine
  • No. 3 by Tom Lemming of Schaumburg, Ill.-based Prep Football Report
  • No. 3 by Bobby Burton of the Austin, Texas-based National Recruiting Advisor
  • No. 3 by Rivals.com Football Recruiting Rankings

QUOTES FROM LSU HEAD FOOTBALL COACH NICK SABAN ON NATIONAL SIGNING DAY- FEB. 7, 2001

“First of all let me start off by saying that we have never had a bad recruiting season or year, secondly we have never had a bad spring practice, and if you get drafted then your always the last guy cut — those three things are always fears in sports and football and college football. Based on that we didn’t have a bad recruiting year, so basically I am telling you nothing when I tell you that. We are very pleased with the results we are were able to get with this year’s recruiting class.”

“Probably the biggest pleasure to me is the fact that we were able to attract such a character, quality group of young men. This is probably the best academic class that I have personally ever been involved with in recruiting at any institution. I think that is a real positive. We only have two guys in this group that aren’t qualified. We are very pleased about that fact. Our goal and mission statement here is to help our players develop as people so that they have a better chance to be successful in life. Secondly, we want them to get an education and also to develop and become great football players. We have such great support in this state, and our players can launch their careers and have a lot of success in life when they leave here.”

“We are very pleased with the fact that we have a group of guys with a lot of character who want to be great football players- and I think that is a great start to being successful at anything. I think we filled a lot of our needs with this recruiting class. I am very pleased with the quality of the big people we were able to recruit on both sides of the ball, which we most certainly need. I think we’ve got a few players that are playmakers on defense, some skill guys on offense who make plays, and some speed in the slots. Even though we only recruited one quarterback we feel good about the guy that we have to develop for the future.

“Our tight end group is good, and may be the best tight-end school in the country. We were able to attract a very strong group of tight ends this year. Recruiting is not any exact science, and you all probably know that. Football is different from any other sport — it is almost like picking puppy dogs. When you take the pick of the litter, it will always take two or three years to know what that dog is supposed to be like. It is the same in football, because I think there is a very important maturity process at this time in a player’s life relative to how they develop from the time we recruit them in high school to the time they become productive college football players.

“I firmly believe that this is not an exact science in any way. Today we are just very pleased with the quality of football players that we were able to attract in this class. I think our main success in this class was that we were able to keep a high percentage of players in this state who were qualifiers with us in this class.”

LSU’s 2001 Signing Class includes: