Recruiting has been happening for decades at Alabama high schools.

Any team that can beat PG, could likely beat Auburn.

Recruiting has been happening for years but it use to before a little harder to do at the small school level before private schools were allowed to play with public schools,it use to be one or two players not a whole team.Very few D1 players come from small schools that are not private. It all boils down to people with money wanting their kids to win champion ships so they recruit players.

Glad we got beat before we got to them, would have been a beat down on us, mars hill went to cullman and beat them pretty good this year

I think they've only won one state championship in their history, though.

High school football is very different in the rest of the state than it is in North Alabama (Cullman and north)...and by "different", I mean "better".

When they get to play teams from the south they see some speed.

Wish us luck, our team Spring Garden, takes on Mars Hill @ Mars Hill in less than an hour.
We just moved up to 2A this year. We have a few athletes and a ton of confidence but we gonna need some luck too.

Well Mountain Brook’s season ended tonight with a loss to Pinson Valley 27-10.

Any year you are still playing after Thanksgiving is a heck of a season in my book.

I concur with that statement.

I got to watch a great HS game tonight. 4A semifinal. Gordo at Etowah . Gordo had a very solid well rounded and coached team. Etowah had 2 explosive playmakers. Ended up 21-14 Gordo

Mars Hill State champs once again. They dominated the south team. AHSAA really needs to do something about private school recruiting.

Nothing will ever be done too much money at private schools ,been a push to change it for a few years AHSAA does not care as long as they get there money.

I wasn't aware that Mars Hill had only had a football program for the last 5 or 6 years. Seems like I (wrongly) remembered them being ranked for years on end, but apparently that was in baseball.

Congrats to them, but it's certainly not a level playing field. All bets are off when recruiting is allowed, and it's not just the private schools. TR Miller has had a 30+ year run of great football...all due to recruiting and pilfering kids who were zoned to go to WS Neal and/or Flomaton. Now, Flomaton is able to keep "their" kids at home, along with some kids who should be at Atmore, and Flomaton's program has risen, while Miller's has taken a step back.

I thought I had seen in the past where AHSAA bumps private schools up a couple of classifications due to "allowed" recruiting...called it "competitive balancing" or something...but maybe I'm imagining that. Mars Hill being at 2A pretty much debunks that. Bump them up to 3A and see how good they really are.

There is a formula for private schools that inflates their actual numbers. A year or so back the AHSAA also added the competitive balancing where they can just bump an overly successful private school up in individual sports also. I realize its all about the money, however; there are enough private schools now that I believe they could add a couple of classifications for private schools only and thus create a super 9. Thus creating more money for the AHSAA.

The formula is 1 student counts as 1.2 at private schools, which does not make any difference in big towns with ,where there is a lot to choose from. They should have to play in the private school classification. It's not fair to the kids from small towns that grew up together & worked hard to be good only to have a school in town like Florence or Tuscaloosa pay a good players to attend a private school.Mars Hill got moved up to 2a this year but most of the time there's not much difference in 1a vs 2a.

All schools can be bumped up. Not just private schools.

If you think it's just private schools recruiting, you have your head in the sand. Public/City schools "recruit" just as much as private schools.

I guess somebody forgot to tell mars hill south alabama football was better

Mars Hill was bumped up from 1a to 2a this year.