1861

Oh yes, yes, yes I do. I would rather join the Big 10, but the Big 12 would be a nice place to play as well.

1862

Egads:

Stlll isn’t going to happen, but interesting.

1863

Good Lord, the front page on ESPN for national signing day is bigger than it is for most professional sporting events. I guess it really brings out the scouting/draft geeks or something. I had never followed the spectacle before. Wake me in a few years when the kids pan out.

1864

I take that back. The best part of this day might just be scouting early candidates for Name of the Year 2010.

Sharrif Floyd
Neiron Ball
Taylor Bible
Carrington Byndom
Khairi Fortt
Mister Jones

I may have to approach my wife about considering Jawuan James for when we have kids.

[EDIT] SBnation seems to be on this, and points out Munchie Legaux (just committed to Cincy) and Wave Ryder. Almost forgot about him.

1865

Sorry for the EDSBS repost.

1866

Jackson Jeffcoat
Storm Johnson
Xavier Grimble
Lache Seastrunk
Owamagbe Odighizuwa
Jose Jose

Some great ones in there :)

1867

The only way UT could go to the Big 10 is if they towed Oklahoma and A&M along with them.

1868

Best recruit name I ever saw was this one. Even better than “Barkevious Mingo.”

1869

Good day for the Vols considering the smoking crater of shame Kiffin left us with, the ESPN guys (some of them) said Tennessee had the best class of the year, relatively speaking. Everyone knew FLorida was going to load up, as well as Texas and Bama. Auburn sort of surprised me, seemingly a VERY strong class there. It’s funny,but I sort of feel bad that part of UT’s success today came at the expense of Mark Richt, the classiest coach in the SEC who will now catch hell from the Georgia fans. Damn, UGA got killed today by poachers.

1870

Yeah the joke about Gene Chizik was when he came to the door recruiting in the same state as Nick Saban. Could be one of those Ron Zook savant recruiting types though.

Georgia is going to have to coach the hell out of their team the next couple of years if they want to get back to prominence I guess. It also looks like the SEC West will have a slight edge over the East again.

1871

How the hell do you get a name like that? (Evan Points At Him, that is)

A literal translation of a Native American last name or something?

1872

Bingo. Look where he’s from.

1873

The Gators new DC bolts right after signing day to take a job for… CHAN GAILEY ??? I think I’d even get bored delivering Chan Gailey behind enemy lines in a special forces helicopter through a hail anti-aircraft fire.

This does go back to what I was saying about Florida, where as a new money school it may be hard to get people to stay there for emotional reasons or “tradition.” Except Billy Donovan I guess.

I would say something about how this sucks for Florida, but the guy wasn’t even around long enough to know whether it’s a good or bad thing.

Can Mike Leach run a defense?

1874

No. He cannot.

1875

Signing day is funny. Here in Seattle you’d have thought the Washinton Huskies were a top 10 school (recruiting wise) with all the hype over what they did. Then I go look at Rivals rankings and while they are a good #28 overall, that’s still only sixth in the Pac 10.

Sure, their future QB is Joe Montana’s kid but that’s not going to be enough unless their lesser signings prove to be generally better then they were rated coming out of high school.

Here’s a really ironic note: the now hated Tyrone Willingham had a higher ranked class (24th) going into what proved to be his last season as head coach.

1876

Is it because Tyrone really isn’t that bad, or is it because he is so bad that he ends up utterly laying waste to the programs he works for?

1877

Tyrone Willingham had basically already lost his job before he ever started it, imo.

1878

If you look at his head coaching record, “laying waste” doesn’t really apply. He took over a marginal team at Stanford, got some decent seasons out of Bill Walsh’s recruits, suffered a short downturn, and then did well in two of his last three years there. Given the difficulties of having success at Stanford, he did pretty well. He certainly didn’t lay waste there as his last season they were 9-3.

On to Notre Dame, he had a pretty good first season then got only two more years. Notre Dame wasn’t willing to give him the time to make the program his. Weiss, his successor, won with his talent for one year then fell apart as well. The worst you can say about Willingham at Notre Dame was that he didn’t have time to show one way or the other. His last year they were 6-5, which is only a bad season for school’s that have really high standards.

Washington was a mess, though. In Willngham’s defense, he inherited a very bad program. The talent level was down in some key areas by the time Neuheisel was fired and the next two years under Gilbertson didn’t accomplish much. So it was going to take time to rebuild. I’m not sure you can say a program that was already that bad can be damaged further, though the winless season he ended his time on might prove that wrong.

1879

Rivals had the lowest ranking for UW’s class. Scout and ESPN have it in the Top 25, and higher in the Pac 10. USC gets the top ranking, but UCLA just had a ridiculous signing day. UW/Stanford/Cal/Oregon are all in contention for next best. It was a spectacular day for the conference, unless you’re Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon State, or Washington State. Even more impressive are the number of recruits the SEC really wanted that went West.

Washington has a huge class. 30 kids, and it finally provides some much-needed depth; Willingham left most positions depleted. UW started a crazy number of true freshmen this year because there wasn’t anybody else. (Sark was able to get more than the 25-in-each-class-limit because he didn’t have a full class last year–he got hired way too late in the recruiting cycle to get a full class. So he’s able to get a bunch of kids in school this spring and they count against the current class.) The best part are the linemen. The average height/weight of the incoming freshman O-Line is bigger than the current line.

I don’t like to say bad things about Gilby; the guy’s a proven coordinator in the NFL and he’s a Husky through-and-through, but he just isn’t head coach material. His tenure at Cal and Washington prove that. Willingham inherited a bad situation, but he made it worse. His prickly attitude alienated everyone who supported the program; he shut out the media, the boosters, the fans. Then he really took a lackadaisical attitude to running the program. He’d rather go golfing than recruiting. Even worse, under Willingham, the weight training regimen was voluntary. One of the first things Sark once he got the Washington job was to recruit one of USC’s strength coaches; after just one year the difference in muscle on the team is night and day. Last year, all the beat reporters saw was flab on the line. This year, the linemen were ripped.

1880

I am just amazed at how poorly the Big 10 did this year in recruiting. The SEC is clearly the best conference, but suddenly the best challenger seems to be the Pac-10. The Big 12 is good, but not deep. All of the cool kids want to go to the SEC, then Texas, then the PAC-10, then Florida State (???)…I sort of enjoy it, but it’s sad to see an entire conference slip away like this.

The SEC is the undisputed king of football right now, but the best challengers to the throne seem to be from the PAC-10. Big 10, please wake up! It was more fun to watch you guys lose when you were supposed to be good.