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 huge receiver Caleb Cunningham from Ackerman, Miss., introduced his dedication to the Crimson Tide by way of social media.
Cunningham is the No. 2 huge receiver and the No. 13 general participant nationally, in line with the 247Sports composite rankings. After this week’s recruit re-rankings, Cunningham’s dedication provides 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 Faculty to a district title, and is an All-State observe and area athlete in lengthy leap and excessive leap. Cunningham recorded 124 catches for two,150 yards and 30 touchdowns in his soccer profession.
He was provided by new huge 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 necessary to the brand new Alabama employees, and the technique’s paying dividends because the Tide maintain the No. 2 class nationally.
“We did a extremely good job of getting guys to campus a number of instances,” coach Kalen DeBoer informed The Athletic. “It wasn’t nearly these official visits, it was a mixture of every part, the work that had been finished all via the spring, the spring recruiting after which doing a extremely good job of getting official visits that had been organized. Simply nice effort on constructing relationships with prospects, their mother and father and their households.”
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Cunningham joins four-star Lotzeir Brooks because the second huge receiver dedication within the Class of 2025, however it’s anticipated to develop because it’s a precedence place on this cycle. Sustaining robust numbers and constructing continuity at huge receiver has been a problem over the previous few seasons with 11 receivers from the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 recruiting courses leaving by way of 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 workforce, during the last two seasons is paying dividends on the recruiting path.
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(Photograph: Ronald Martinez / Getty Photographs)
