When have all seen it, and we hate it every year around this time……unless, the 17 year old selects the hat with our team’s colors.  When that happens, we can’t call our school’s ticket office fast enough.  ”It” is when the can’t-miss prospect from Nowhere, West Texas or the bluechip recruit from Dallas or Houston or the impact player from East Texas sits at a table in a high school gym surrounded by family, teammates, friends and the local media with four hats in front of him to announce where he will play college football.

Recruiting has been called the lifeblood of college football.  That might be too strong of a word, but it is the foundation on which college football programs and championships are built.  It is just not a coincidence that the best recruiters (Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer, Mack Brown, Bob Stoops and, even, Ron Zook) win year after year.  They win because they get the best players.  The lifeblood of college football will always be the importance the alumni and fans of a school place on winning on Saturdays.  PASSION- you can say.  Passion is the monster.  Recruiting feeds it and feeds off of it.

A couple of schools fed the monster this past Wednesday with strong recruiting classes.  Here are the results of some teams from the Big 12 and other Texas colleges with the players they signed (in parenthesis is a former college player they resemble (their college career, not their pro career)).  {Please note, I am not predicting these players will have the careers of the former star I am comparing them to.}

OU had a top five recruiting class that included three stars from Texas: Paris OL Stephen Good (D’Brickshaw Ferguson), Keller DE R.J. Washington (Andre Wadsworth) and Van RB Jermie Calhoun (Musa Smith).   They clearly had the best class in the conference.

Texas ‘hooked’ a top ten class filled with some good receivers, defensive tackles and defensive backs.  The players that you will see playing pretty quick for the Horns are Allen WR Dan Buckner (Mike Williams), Klein WR DeSean Hales (BJ Johnson), Austin WR DJ Grant (Mark Clayton (LSU, not OU)), Cedar Hill DT Jarvis Humphrey (Russell Maryland), Austin CB Aaron Williams (Quentin Jammer),  and Alief RB Jeremy Hills (Byron Hanspard).  The good news is that nine of the twenty players UT signed are already enrolled this spring and will play spring ball, including Nate Newton’s son Southlake RB Tre Newton (Skip Hicks).  The bad news for Texas is that they lost their biggest recruit, California RB Darrell Scott (Ki-Jana Carter), 24 hours before signing day. He signed with…

Colorado.  The Buffs got a great back that should start from Game 1, unless the recruiting police come knocking and start looking around.  They also signed two stud linebackers and a good offensive lineman.  They had the best recuiting class of the Big 12 North schools. Mizzou was second.

Mike Sherman at Texas A&M had a very good first recruiting class.  Coach Fran did most of the legwork, but Sherman will reap the benefits with McKinney WR Jeff Fuller (Sloan Thomas), Desoto RB Cyrus Gray (Ricky Williams, the Tech one), Aldine DT Rod Davis (Ty Warren), Desoto DE Tony Jerod (Chase Pittman).

Oklahoma State signed ”good kids that are good with the public, are good with the media,” but they did not sign any notable players.  Baylor and SMU signed large classes, and their new head coaches, Art Briles and June Jones, should be happy given their circumstances.  Texas Tech and TCU should be embarrassed. Both had few scholarships to award, and they wasted those few on juco players and lowly rated players.

In closing, unlike the actual season, there is no offseason in recruiting.  Which is an indication of its importance. Already there are 2009 recruits to attract, text and write. Texas already got one on Thursday.  National Signing Day 2009 is only 362 Days away and the monster is always hungry and needs to be fed.