| 04 February 2011
After a full season of fierce rivalry and pure hatred for one another, college football fans across the country are united by the unrelenting, torturous, gut-wrenching anxiety that is recruiting season. Luckily, every year, on the first Wednesday of February, the anxiety is finally relieved as ESPNU broadcasts National Signing Day for 10 straight hours.
There is no logical explanation as to why anybody outside the SEC even cares, because let’s face it, all the 5-star recruits in the world would not change the fact that they play in an inferior conference.
In other words, yeah, we all know it and so do you.
Regardless, diehard fans from coast to coast either found a way to wear their school colors to work, or just took the day off, and sat on the edge of their desk chairs and lazy boys, hoping for a sign of light, a reason to wake up every morning and continue go to a job they despise, in the freezing cold winter months, a reason to believe that “this is the year”.
The whole world (except maybe Egypt since they currently have no internet) slowed down as high school athletes from around the country courageously made their way to a fax machine (which, by the way is so antiquated … come on now people, this is 2011, buy a scanner) and sent a signed letter of intent to the college at which they intend to play football in 2011.
A perfect representation of the regular college football season, National Signing day was completely dominated by the SEC.
Shocking, I know. Out of the 12 SEC teams, nine were ranked in the top 25, including:
Alabama (#1)
Georgia (#5),
LSU (#6)
Auburn (#7)
Tennessee (#12)
Florida (#14)
SouthCarolina (#20)
Arkansas (#24
NINE out of the twelve teams in the SEC in the top 25? Where is YOUR conference?
The average star rating among those teams was 3.46, including nine 5-star recruits, and 83 4-star recruits.
Of course, while it makes perfect sense that the SEC once again dominates yet another poll, I feel it is my duty to point out how meaningless the rankings of the individual recruits really are.
The best example of this was in 2007, Cam Newton (pre-laptop thievery),was ranked #58 overall in the ESPN 150, and Stephen Garcia, the QB at South Carolina for what seems like the past 15 years, was ranked #38. I rest my case.
There were a few surprises during the 2011 National Signing Day Extravaganza, like Floyd Raven’s mother forging his signature on a LOI to Ole Miss because she really liked Huston Nutt , and somebody forgetting to inform Lamar Dawson that he would have been better off staying in the SEC, since Southern California is about to get slammed with more restrictions, is already not allowed to play in any post season games, and…oh yeah, this past season the Trojans lost to Notre Dame…at home.
Great job Lane Kiffin, you HAVE PROVEN that SoCal IS a top ten job ... yup.
However, in the aftermath of the 10-hour ESPN gluttony, as the country returns to its regularly scheduled hatred of one another, there is one burning question that remains unanswered. No, it is not “why is Lane Kiffin still allowed to speak in public?”, although I have no doubt that keeps many people up at night. The biggest mystery of the entire 2011 recruiting season is, why the hell would four 5-star recruits choose to play at Clemson?
It would be reasonable if these recruits were from the State of South Carolina and they wanted to be close to home, or if there just were not any better schools to choose from, but that was not the case at all.
Stephone Anthony is from North Carolina, and was the only one who was even remotely closeto Clemson. The other three are from Florida. The similarity in all four cases is that they all either only visited Clemson, or took a quick visit to one other school, and all of them were contacted by several schools in the SEC.
With the embarrassing beatdown that the Gamecocks handed them, ending thei rmediocre 2010 regular season, in a less than mediocre conference, the abrupt and recent coaching changes, and the fact that even after signing day, the Tigers still lack a halfway decent QB, I seriously have to wonder if Clemson is up to no good.
