Do you trust this staff...

Trust more than the recruiting services? Yes. I trust the coaches more than the recruiting services.

I think you have to take it one staffer at a time, because this staff hasn't been together that long.

Everyone trusts Raymond. Dude's a proven commodity. He missed on Surtain and Goodrich last year, but he def gets a pass for that.

Everyone trusts Aranda. Dude's brought in some big-time backers since he's been here and he locks them up early. He's also been able to pull in big-time prospects from out-of-state, which is what we love to see.

Ed O is hit or miss. He locked up Key, Chaisson, and Lawrence. He's also done a good job of coaching up the projects. But, he's missed on some prospects we thought we locked up and is still getting poached by Bama. This class sucks so far.

Meatball kind of falls in with Ed O since he's his protege.

Bill Busch is an unknown right now.

Cregg's brought in a good haul, though we still don't seem to have that prototype LT in this class. It's nice to hear that we've had some interest from some big time tackles though, but we haven't seen that turn into any results yet.

T-Rob, imo, has opened up a nice pipeline to Alabama talent. He missed last year on the big targets. This year's class is a homerun.

Joseph...I have no clue. I heard he helped with Emery, so that's good.

Ensminger seems to be bringing in some great talent.

All that said, I think the faith in the staff in recruiting will get tangled up with faith in the staff as coaches. But, yeah, it's going to be a good class. If we can get two more d-lineman it will be a phenomenal class. Who knows where the hell they're going to come from though.

What the hell? It's kind of early to tell isn't it? And you're just going to throw this out there with no specific examples that have you worried?

Ok. Here's a quick list:
Tae Provens over Slade Bolden - too early to tell, but Provens looked good in limited action

Pat Surtain & Mario Goodrich over Eddie Smith - considering Surtain started I think it's safe to say he was better. No idea about Goodrich. Of course, kinda sucks we didn't get any of them, but you asked about talent evaluation

Marcel Brooks over Bryton Constatin - too early to tell

Donte Starks and Kendall McCallum over Christian Harris - too early to tell

Devonte Lee over Makiya Tongue - too early to tell

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to pass on a highly rated in-state guy if they feel he is overrated and or doesn’t fit what they are looking for? I don’t have an exact example, just wondering your level of trust in the ability of this staff to evaluate talent and close on the guys they want.

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I feel comfortable with this staff's selection of skill position guys but I have not seen a home run hit for a dominant lineman (OL or DL) in several years. We have had some good ones but we have not any great ones in 6-7 years... and we got most of those great players from near home.

I trust them to evaluate the players. Closing on the guys they want can sometime be what is tricky.

I trust them. Not every player they bring in is going to be a hit, every staff has misses

For every Jonathan Giles and Badora Traore there is a Cole Tracy and a Joey Burrow

Last year's efficiency and competency = 7.2 out of 10. This year's rating would be 8.9 out of 10. Disclaimer 10 out of 10 translates into Alabama on its best day with 10 straight number one recruiting classes and hitting on 7+ five stars across the board in each of those classes. So a perfect 10 is virtually impossible to keep the standards high and the rest is subjective.

More so than literally every single poster on this site.

Defense? Sure

Offense? Our evals have been hit or miss if not poor (QB,OL) for years. Not to mention our on field product doesn’t exactly usher in confidence.