Simmons' Takeaways: From the road in Alabama

The high school football talent is only getting better in the state of Alabama. The talent pool is deeper, the prospects at the top are better and the talent is spread out across the state.

Rivals.com is spending more time in Alabama. After visiting close to two-dozen high schools, watching six practices and taking in a big game, here are five takeaways from the trip on top 2018 prospects.

Birmingham (Ala.) Jackson-Olin four-star defensive lineman Coynis Miller is not hiding that Florida is his leader despite being pursued by both Alabama and Auburn. He has a great connection with defensive line coach Chris Rumph and after visiting Florida over the summer, Miller said he compared each school and that Florida just looks the best to him right now. Expect this race to be very heated and for the in-state schools to turn up the pressure on him.

He is very familiar with Alabama and Auburn — both have him high on their boards, but he does not feel pressure to stay home.

“I will do my own thing. My family will let me go wherever I am most happy,” he said.

Florida has the edge now and all three SEC schools are expected to receive official visits. Miller at one time was close to committing late in the summer, but he has really slowed things down now and he may take his recruitment all the way to Signing Day.

About nine months ago, Rivals 250 wide receiver Seth Williams was very close to committing to a school. Who was it going to be? Williams has not revealed that, but Florida State was the school talked about the most behind the scenes at that time. He decided to hold off on his commitment and he has not said much about his recruitment since.

Alabama and Auburn are both actively recruiting Williams, and at this time, it looks like it could come down to the two in-state schools. Williams visited both schools in July and he plans to take in games on each campus this fall. Since taking over as offensive coordinator for Alabama, Brian Daboll has been in pursuit. Auburn has been consistent and wide receivers coach Kodi Burns and offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey are both actively recruiting Williams. If there is a school trending right now, it looks to be Auburn. Williams has not scheduled any official visits yet, but he plans to start taking those in the middle of the season.

Justyn Ross is a five-star wide receiver out of Phenix City (Ala.) Central. At one time he looked to be headed to Auburn, then Alabama was trending, but Clemson is the school with the momentum early in the 2017 season.

He was at Clemson on Saturday for the Auburn game, and Clemson had a couple of coaches at his game against Auburn (Ala.) on Friday. The Clemson staff has done an excellent job recruiting Ross and building that relationship with him. Under Jeff Scott, Clemson has been producing elite wide receivers and that is one thing that appeals to Ross. The campus environment does too.

Alabama and Auburn are not going to go away and Florida and Florida State are hanging around, but Clemson is trending here. Not many early on saw Ross leaving his home state to play college football, but his interest in Clemson is real.

Birmingham (Ala.) Mountain Brook four-star running back Harold Joiner has an official visit to LSU scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 14 when the Tigers host Auburn. Joiner has had LSU high on his list for some time, with him listing them as his leader numerous times, so the Tigers in Baton Rouge (La.) have a real shot at landing him. He has only visited LSU once, back in March when they offered, so he wants to spend more time around the campus and get a better look at how he would fit in as a running back on this visit.

Joiner was on the Clemson campus over the weekend and if those Tigers offer, they become a contender immediately. He had a "great" time at Clemson and he feels an offer from Dabo Swinney is nearing.

Michigan State and UCLA are a couple other schools to watch. He has an official visit to UCLA scheduled for Oct. 21.

Andre Fox likes to keep to himself. He does not share much about his recruitment and he quietly took an official visit to Arizona on Sept. 2. The Wildcats are in this, and a lot of that has to do with Troy Young, a teammate of Fox’ last year at Mobile (Ala.) Mobile Christian. Can the Wildcats land Fox too? Despite the visit, it still looks unlikely at this time, but you never really know with Fox.

Alabama, Auburn and LSU still look to be the main competitors here. He is not going to give anything away, and when talking to friends of his, and some close to him, none really had an idea of which school he was leaning towards at this time. He visited all three schools over the summer and will see them again this season.

Stanford is hanging around as well and he plans to take an official visit out there. Fox does plan to put his top schools in a numeric order down the road, but he is not there yet. He did say LSU is recruiting him the hardest right now and Ed Orgeron is the head coach showing him the most attention. A decision is likely to happen in December or January.