Alabama General Manager Courtney Morgan assumed he would be heading to Tuscaloosa when Kalen DeBoer took the head coaching job. Sure enough, Morgan was one of the first off the plane when DeBoer arrived and quickly proved why he was such a highly valued member of DeBoer’s staff.

In the months since the DeBoer regime took over, Alabama has been on fire on the recruiting trail. The Crimson Tide’s 2025 class ranks No. 2 in the country with 22 commits, including a bounty of high-end four-stars.

Alabama’s successful start to life on the recruiting trail under DeBoer is largely thanks to Morgan’s work guiding the rest of Alabama’s assistants and recruiting staff. His role as GM calls for him to oversee all things recruiting and supervise internal brand management. He spearheaded Alabama’s Cold Summer mantra and helped develop an elite recruiting staff to recruit an equally elite 2025 class.

“I think if you look at the staff we assembled on the recruiting side, it was really intentional,” Morgan told Tide 100.9. “There was a lot of thought behind every person that was hired on the staff. Everyone we brought in, including the people that were here — we knew what everyone’s strengths were. I think it was a good blending of the old guard and the new regime and more importantly, people being humble and being willing to work together and I think this is the result.”

Morgan praised his staff's attention to detail and communication skills to help Alabama recruit efficiently. Morgan’s experience at Vanguard Sports Group and later his own sports marketing business, Pure Influence Group, allowed him to sharpen his management skills and develop into a trusted leader of DeBoer’s recruiting operations. His previous work also helped him learn how to build a strong and effective brand, as he did with “Cold Summer.”

With Morgan supervising, Alabama’s recruiting staff holds countless meetings and divides its efforts between offensive and defensive targets. This helps maximize player scouting and lets the staff find the best strategy to get a player on campus and land their services.

“We build relationships; we go the extra mile,” Morgan said. We find someone who is in that kid’s (circle), recruit them and when they get on campus we treat every campus visit, unofficial or official, like they won’t be coming back. So our goal is to knock it out of the park when they’re here. It really is just staying authentic and engaging and doing more listening than talking. Because when you listen, people tell you what they’re looking for.”

Another key to Alabama’s recruiting strategy is its staff having previous experience at both large and small Power Four programs. Morgan mentioned Associate Director of Player Personnel, Eron Hodges, who worked on Ohio State’s staff under Uban Meyer. Hodges also cut his teeth on the recruiting trail at Purdue, Louisville, Texas Tech and TCU. Unlike Ohio State or Alabama, Hodges’ other previous stops required him to put in extra work to help those sides compete with college football’s blue bloods on the recruiting trail. Hodges was able to develop a work ethic that he now relies on to bring the nation’s best high school stars to Tuscaloosa.

“A lot of fans, they get caught up in names,” Morgan said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, he was the Director (of Player Personnel) at Purdue.’ But when you’re at Washington and you’re at Purdue, it’s harder to recruit at those places because your brand is not strong enough. So you have to be able to evaluate. You have to be able to get guys that schools missed on and then produce an NFL Draft pick. Now when you get to Alabama, you can get the cream of the crop and now it’s just building relationships.”

The staff’s previous connections also give Alabama an advantage when building those relationships. Morgan also talked about Director of Recruiting Jatavis Sanders, who spent several years coaching at the high school level in Georgia. Those connections helped Alabama land a trio of linebackers from the Peach State in 2025.

“Everyone plays a part,” Morgan said. “But one thing those guys can do is build relationships. Because there’s a time when your football coaches have to coach football and recruiting is not the primary thing because you’ve got to win football games. So we’ve built a staff where we can take some of that load off of our coaches and still recruit at a high level.”

Alabama’s current players have also become key cogs in the Tide’s recruiting effort. Alabama landed the majority of its 2025 targets shortly after they took official visits to Tuscaloosa last month. When those targets were on campus, they saw Alabama’s current squad enjoying their experience and heard an honest and positive assessment of the coaching staff.

“When you have happy players and players are enjoying their experience that carries over to the recruits when they’re out hanging out,” Morgan said. “Because one thing I know is the players are always going to tell the truth. The recruits are always going to ask (players) the hard questions that they won’t ask coaches. So I think the culture we’re building is great; I think the players are happy. So when the recruits ask them, ‘How is this place? Tell me the real. Let me know what’s really going on.’ Our players are excited to be here.”

Morgan added that another key in Alabama’s current group assisting in recruiting is that players are willing and excited for the Crimson Tide to add top talent to compete with them.

“Our players welcome great players; it’s not like that everywhere,” Morgan said. “At some schools, players are threatened when you’re bringing five-stars on campus. If you look at the offensive linemen that we’ve (landed), we have five really really good ones. Who’s reposting their commitment graphics on social media? (Kadyn) Proctor Wilkan (Formby), Tyler (Booker). These are guys who are happy to bring in other top players because I think this place is built for greatness and guys know in order for us to keep winning we have to bring great players in. So our players know that and they do a great job. They did a great job this spring and summer.”

Alabama shows no sign of slowing things down when it comes to recruiting. Thanks to Morgan’s leadership, the Crimson Tide is in a great spot to finish with a top three and possibly even the number one recruiting class when December rolls around. As far as the number of targets Morgan and Company are aiming for by the end of the cycle, Morgan drew on something he learned as the Director of Player Personnel at Michigan to make that determination.

"I'll tell you one thing I took from working with Jim Harbaugh, and he always says this: We don't turn down good players,” Morgan said. “If they're a fit culturally, and they fit the culture of what we're trying to do and they want to be at Alabama then we don't turn down good players. Everything always works itself out.”