Despite difference in recruiting rankings, Alabama and Missouri battling for SEC championship

No. 17 Missouri 21, ARKANSAS 14

Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel, center, is hugged by fans after they defeated Arkansas 21-14 in an NCAA college football game Friday, Nov. 28, 2014, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)

(L.G. Patterson)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel said he's never looked at a recruiting ranking. Alabama head coach Nick Saban questioned their accuracy.

But Saturday's SEC Championship game between the two schools is marked by a perennial Signing Day champion in Alabama against one that normally finishes near the bottom of conference recruiting rankings in Missouri.

But the Tigers (10-2, 6-1 SEC) are back in Atlanta for the second straight year. If you're keeping score, that's two trips in three seasons of existence in the SEC for the Tigers.

According to the 247Sports composite rankings, Missouri's recruiting class has been ranked 13^th, last, 11^th, last and 8^th in the SEC over the last five seasons. Alabama's has ranked first each year except in 2010 when Florida edged the Crimson Tide.

Missouri's 2015 class of verbal commitments ranks 11^th in the SEC. Alabama's is first in the country. When asked about rankings during Sunday's SEC Championship coaches teleconference, Pinkel reiterated that he's never checked those since he's been coaching.

"We do a thing called 'Mizzou Made' here," Pinkel said. "We think we've developed players as good as anybody in the country.  We have a plan and infrastructure set in to do that, professionally, personally, academically, player development."

Saban, a longtime friend of Pinkel's who he played and coached with at Kent State, said he didn't know how much validity recruiting rankings actually have. The 247Sports composite rankings show that Alabama (11-1, 7-1) has signed 18 5-star recruits since 2010 while Missouri has signed just one - receiver Dorial Green-Beckham, who is no longer with the program - in 2012. Alabama was a school Missouri beat out for his services.

"Sometimes I don't know what comes first in recruiting rankings, the cart or the horse," Saban said. "When a guy gets recruited by what I'm going to call high-profile programs, he gets ranked higher.  That's where I question the validity of how accurate some of those things may be."

Pinkel said he learned his system from the late Don James, who he coached under at the University of Washington and at Kent State with Saban. He tweaked it a little bit, always trying to make it better.

"We just do what we do," Pinkel said. "I think it would be hard to say that we haven't had a little bit of success doing it our way."

Alabama and Missouri play at 3 p.m. CT on Saturday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Here is a brief chart detailing the recruiting differences. All ratings come from the 247Sports composite. Missouri was in the Big 12 during the first two classes, but 247Sports grouped Missouri with the SEC in all classes.