National Signing Day 2008 — Running Thread

Sounds like a good enterprise story to me.

 

I've suggested it before. But our main college writer would rather fellate the top recruit who is coming to the local university. Nothing is more pathetic than watching a 40-year-old treat a 17-year-old like a God...

 

Here's Rivals Top 100 from 2002:

http://rivals100.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=50

 

You're hired.

 

It is utterly boring around here. Everybody worth anything had already committed, so the only things we've gotten today are a couple of kids going non-scholarship to DIII schools.

We're posting lists and notes as they come in on the web, and, I'm told, it's getting tons of hits.

 

This list doesn't exactly make the point I wanted it to...

1 Vincent Young
2 Haloti Ngata
3 Lorenzo Booker
4 Ben Olson
5 Reggie McNeal
6 Chris Davis
7 Ryan Moore
8 Marcus Vick
9 Leon Washington
10 Ciatrick Fason
11 Kai Parham
12 Gerald Riggs Jr.
13 Rodrique Wright
14 Michael Johnson
15 Justin Blalock
16 DiShon Platt
17 Ricardo Hurley
18 Nathan Rhodes
19 Brandon Jeffries
20 Trent Edwards
21 Deljuan Robinson
22 Jerious Norwood
23 Marquis Johnson
24 Derek Morris
25 Darren Williams
26 Pat Watkins
27 Ahmad Brooks
28 Devin Hester
29 Mike D'Andrea
30 James Banks
31 Zach Latimer
32 Ben Obomanu
33 Gabriel Watson
34 Jonathan Mapu
35 Edorian McCullough
36 Marcedes Lewis
37 Maurice Clarett
38 Bryan Pickryl
39 Lonnie Davis
40 Justin Zwick
41 A.J. Nicholson
42 Rhema McKnight
43 Julian Jenkins
44 Marvin Byrdsong
45 Marcus Jackson
46 Kyle Williams
47 DaBryan Blanton
48 DeShawn Wynn
49 Kedric Golston
50 Justin Vincent
51 Eric Winston
52 Darnell Bing
53 Aaron Harris
54 Richard Washington
55 Jarrad Page
56 Winston Justice
57 Gavin Dickey
58 Kamerion Wimbley
59 Tamba Hali
60 Jason Carter
61 Chris Baker
62 Hershel Dennis
63 David Richard
64 Tony Ugoh
65 Jason Allen
66 Derek Landri
67 Lester Ricard Jr.
68 Doug Datish
69 Donny Mateaki
70 Parys Haralson
71 Eric McNeal
72 Quinn Pitcock
73 Mario Whitney
74 Aaron Miller
75 Selvin Young
76 Akieem Jolla
77 Aaron Kirkland
78 David Horne
79 Nick Turner
80 A.J. Davis
81 Chase Pittman
82 Manuel Wright
83 Jonathan Wade
84 Montae Pitts
85 Heath Benedict
86 Kyle Brown
87 Micheal Hawkins
88 Devin Aromashodu
89 Neale Tweedie
90 Blake Mackey
91 Anthony Martinez
92 William Cooper
93 Randy Hand
94 Nate Harris
95 Rob Smith
96 Matt Gutierrez
97 Curtis Justus
98 Davin Joseph
99 Kyle Williams
100 Jim Unis

 

It's been done quite a few times. Usually the top 10-20 kids, the "five-star prospects," end up being early-round NFL Draft picks and college studs. They're pretty easy to pick out, even at that age. These are your Tim Tebows and Jimmy Clausens and Joe McKnights and Adrian Petersons of the world.

Once you get below that level, it's a relative crapshoot.

There certainly is a correlation between recruiting ranking and college/pro performance, and of course there are some busts to go along with it because it's never going to be an exact science.

 

Usually the busts are because of grades and/or injuries. Very few out of any top 100 show up on campus and turn out to run a 4.7 instead of a 4.3.

 

The rivals.com list makes that incredibly easy to do. I've seen several stories and BLOGS! on this topic.

 

12, 19, 30, 77 and 85 worked out swimmingly for Fulmer.

At least 65, 70 and 83 did, and 95 and 34 sort of did.

Except this year, that fat bastard can recruit.

 

Fucking solid.

 

We can goof on it, and some aspects of it rightfully so.

But there are people making gobs of money out there by addressing a hunger for recruiting info.

Newspapers could have taken the high ground in this area, imposed our brand of ethical behavior and raked in the cash ourselves. But, no.