National Signing Day: How’s your team doing today?
Today is like a mini Christmas for me because it is national signing day for college football. It hasn’t always been this way because I’ve been a lifetime University of Illinois fan but now things have changed and playing in Illinois is becoming cool again. My team did great signing 27 kids among them some very highly touted kids who chose the Illini over Ohio st and LSU. That makes me happy.
Other schools haven’t been so lucky but isn’t it amazing how this recruiting has become. I was able to go to a few websites this morning and get updates as each fax came across. The internet has changed it all. ESPNU had several players on tv today announcing where they would be going to school. Jamie Harper was one of those kids and I was entranced as he chose Clemson over my beloved ILLINI. You can’t tell me high school kids aren’t drawn to that type of publicity. I would’ve loved that.
College football is a different animal than most college sports because of the amount of players, playing time and scholarships. Many of the kids that sign today will end up transferring, quitting or flunking out of school altogether. I was reading a list of BYU’s signing class of 2004 today and I was shocked to learn what happened to those kids. 14 of the 26 kids that signed that day ended up staying at BYU. 12 kids left the program. That’s an inflated percentage because BYU had some legal troubles with that class of recruits but that’s a trend in college football. Kids want to play and they want to play today. They are treated as royalty at such a young age and have things handed to them that they believe it should be the same in college. The truth is that only a handful of kids each year deserve that type of attention with the rest of them getting their eyes opened very quickly to how different college is over high school. It is tough when you go from playing against a few good players every game to going against guys just like you who were the best players on their teams also.
I wish this high school class the best of luck and hope they remember that the point is to get the free education and anything beyond that is gravy. For next years players, if you are a top 100 recruit just look to the Orange and Blue of Illinois as two of your favorite colors.
