Tomorrow is a big day on the college football landscape, it’s Signing Day. Signing day has become a gigantic event with the advent of the internet, talk radio and ESPNU. There are sites out the like Rivals and Scout, who track the best players when they are freshmen it seems. They tell you who is signing with who, who recruited them, what schools they like and what type of underwear they sport. A surprising number go with none. Must be for sexting reasons. I’m not a fan of signing day. Why? Here are 4 reasons. I hope I can think of 4.
1) It’s boring. I find all recruiting talk, in both basketball and football, to be pretty boring. I don’t really know why so many people get invested in the process. I can see why it’s a big deal now, for signing day, when everything becomes official. I can’t see why it’s so popular in May or June. I guess because nothing else is happening, and everyone needs to follow something. After the season, it’s like free agency. Before the season, and during the season for that matter, it doesn’t really matter. Those guys won’t step foot on campus for a whole season. Why get worked up for people who have no impact on that current season? I don’t know either, that’s why I find it boring. The weird thing is, that in NCAA 11 and nearly all college games, I find recruiting to be the most fun part. That’s because I’m a bad ass recruiter who lands the top classes. In the basketball game with Greg oden on the cover, I can recruit to any college. I’m awesome at that game. Bring back another one 2K. That brings me to another reason.
2) The schools I like never have good classes. As someone who is fond of teams that were in Conference USA and now the Big East, I haven’t seen a team I like have a top flight class. This is the best class Cincinnati has ever brought in according to some sources, and it’s ranked 46 by Rivals. That’s not really impressive. I like Louisville as well, yeah shut up, and this is their best class ever, at 24 right now. It’s not really as fun to watch the recruiting shows, or read the sites and never, ever see your team on the front page of them. It does a lot to lower the interest. In the south, that’s life. The SEC is probably single handily making these things popular by being a) pretty much a pro sport, and b) having nothing else to do but obsess over this stuff. Ohio State and USC and Texas and Oklahoma with some others have a hand in this as well.
That doesn’t speak to the lower regarded prospects that the schools brought in and molded for 2 or 3 seasons. That’s a big part of recruiting. That’s not the flashy part of recruiting that will get talked about Wednesday. No one will say, hey look at the class Ball State is bringing in, they have some guys who could be decent in 4 years. That brings me to my next point.
3) No impact. There are a lot of recruits year in and year out that have no impact at all. Let’s take a look at the 2007 recruiting class. We have just 13 of 23 that ever suited up for the Bearcats. 1 is a backup QB, Chazz Anderson, 1 had like 1 catch his career, OJ Woodard, 1 also rarely plays, although he follows me on twitter, Ricardo Thompson, 1 had 2 tackles, Tomaz Hilton 2 are mainly reserves, Rob Trigg and Adrien Robinson, 3 are starting linemen, Alex Hoffman, Sam Griffin, and Randy Martinez, 2 started on defense, Drew Frey and John Hughes. The other 2 were a 3 star prospect and a 2 star. They were Zach Collaros, and Armon Binns. None of these players did anything significant their first 2 years as a Bearcat. Nearly all of them were redshirted, that’s why they are still playing today. I don’t know why people worry so much over something that has no effect until later. But what do I know?
4) Exploitation. I think recruiting has become a massive exploitation of high school athletes. I don’t really like the direct things have gone. I didn’t really like it when LeBron James started having his high school games on ESPN. I don’t like that we have multiple all star games where kids now pick their schools during the game. I don’t like that signing day has become a massive, million dollar industry. They are kids in high school picking a college. They aren’t Nobel prize nominees. I don’t know why society has changed in such a way that we have accepted the fact that some kid going to some school has become a national story. Plus, this puts a lot of undue pressure on a guy. Look at Harrison Barnes. He was a preseason all American at North Carolina. He caught a lot of shit earlier in the season for not performing at an all American level. That’s not his fault. He didn’t vote himself there. I think the message board culture that we have now is turning things on their ear. The facebook stuff alone is fucking disgraceful. I don’t know why grown ass men are following high school kids on facebook and twitter, and then lashing out at them for choosing to go to another school or choosing to go pro. There are a lot of fucking assholes in the world, and they have found new ways of ruining things to everyone. Using social media to talk to high school and college prospects and be a good thing I suppose. I know that I follow a couple of UC basketball recruits. But, I know if they decided to decommit from UC, I won’t tweet them that they are cock suckers who made a major mistake and they are traitors. You may think that sounds harsh, but read some of the vitriol players get. It’s gross. In a way, I wish some of this stuff never took off. I probably wouldn’t have a blog if it did, but maybe that would be for the better as well.
I laid out those reasons for hating signing day and all it stands for right there, but tomorrow there is going to be a signing day post. Am I doing it for page views and clicks? Yes. I have a blog that I want people to read, it’s kind of necessary. I won’t have in depth analysis, when do I ever right?, and I’ll probably just throw up a list of the names. I can tell you one thing though, Patrick Coyne is fucking awesome because he went to Badin. Hail to the colors bright, green and white. Dauntless something something banners high pass the test.
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