I bet you're right on Vandy. If you sign up for Vanderbilt, you probably care as much (if not more) about academics as you do football.
With Bama, I'd wager it has more to do with the coaching staff, winning culture, and stability. If anything, it's more likely that attrition would be higher if guys were frustrated "waiting their turn."
I don't think this is a real shocker. If we looked at large corporations and attrition, we'd probably find that the best managed companies had lower attrition than the poorly managed ones. Even if you could go into a "poorly managed company" and have a better title, and higher-level responsibilities, you'd probably find that you had a lesser chance of success within a poorly run organization. Likewise, many of these Alabama guys are content "waiting their turn" because they are in a great system that has been proven to work.
