Alabama soccer’s recruiting momentum continued Saturday afternoon with one other dedication, and it’s now the highest-rated recruit in its 2025 class. 5-star vast receiver Caleb Cunningham from Ackerman, Miss., introduced his dedication to the Crimson Tide through social media.
Cunningham is the No. 2 vast receiver and the No. 13 general participant nationally, in keeping with the 247Sports composite rankings. After this week’s recruit re-rankings, Cunningham’s dedication offers Alabama 4 composite five-star gamers — together with quarterback Keelon Russell, cornerback Dijon Lee and linebacker Darrell Johnson — and 9 top-100 gamers.
Cunningham, 6-foot-1 and 190 kilos, is a three-sport star in Mississippi. He was the Starkville, Miss., All-Space basketball participant of the yr this previous season, main Choctaw County Excessive College to a district title, and is an All-State observe and discipline athlete in lengthy soar and excessive soar. Cunningham recorded 124 catches for two,150 yards and 30 touchdowns in his soccer profession.
He was supplied by new vast receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard in January and was instantly made a precedence — he visited Alabama throughout spring observe and formally visited in the course of the closing week of June. That go to propelled Alabama over in-state faculty Mississippi State in addition to Tennessee, Auburn and others. Stacking visits for precedence recruits was vital to the brand new Alabama workers, and the technique’s paying dividends because the Tide maintain the No. 2 class nationally.
“We did a very good job of getting guys to campus a number of occasions,” coach Kalen DeBoer advised The Athletic. “It wasn’t nearly these official visits, it was a mixture of all the pieces, the work that had been accomplished all by means of the spring, the spring recruiting after which doing a very good job of getting official visits that have been organized. Simply nice effort on constructing relationships with prospects, their dad and mom and their households.”
GO DEEPER
Alabama’s recruiting retains rolling below Kalen DeBoer: ‘That they had an ideal plan for me’
Cunningham joins four-star Lotzeir Brooks because the second vast receiver dedication within the Class of 2025, however it’s anticipated to develop because it’s a precedence place on this cycle. Sustaining sturdy numbers and constructing continuity at vast receiver has been a problem over the previous couple of seasons with 11 receivers from the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 recruiting courses leaving through the switch portal.
Proper now, Alabama’s room has 4 juniors, one sophomore and 6 freshmen (redshirt and true).
This recruiting win was large for Shephard, pulling in one of many nation’s premier weapons from a neighboring state. The receiver improvement seen at Washington, DeBoer’s former staff, during the last two seasons is paying dividends on the recruiting path.
Required studying
(Photograph: Ronald Martinez / Getty Photos)
