FanHouse LetterOfIntentDay

Welcome all to Signing Day, known in longform as 'National Letter of Intent Day'. Today is the day when all that recruiting stuff becomes names on dotted lines, university stamps and faxes to the NCAA to make it all official.

But there are snags. You see, today is but the first such day for recruits to officially sign an official letter of intent with a school. They're allowed to ponder and wait for much longer, but most recruits' minds are made up. Unless they're Buster Davis and they take a few weeks to sign with the school everyone knew you were going to all along. But let's not talk about that.

Let's talk about the basics.

If you're trying to keep up with all of this, best visit the two main recruiting websites - Rivals and Scout - for all the national lowdown. To get the buzz on who is signing with your favorite team, its rival and conference peers, just surf over to the team pages at Rivals and Scout.

There are other recruiting websites, of course, but those two are like Pepsi and Coke, the big kahunas of the game. Start with them and then branch out at your leisure.

For other coverage, I suggest tuning into ESPNU, as they'll be covering signing day from about noon Eastern onward with live declarations from the handful of uncommitted (verbally) national recruits out there. Here's a link to the announcement times of some of the top uncommitted national recruits. The Rivals 100 list is a good start to see the big names out there and where they're signing and Rivals also ranks the top recruiting classes.

Like who you say? Well, like Joe McKnight for one. Yahoo's got a writeup on him today that's worth a read.

Hopefully this gets you started, but be sure and stop by the FanHouse for our own recruiting spin. We've already tackled some of the top impact recruits and we're only adding more as the day unfolds. And of course please visit AOL's NCAA football page. They've got all the latest headlines and cool features.

Finally, here's the NCAA's National Letter of Intent page for all the logistics, legal, etc. mumbo jumbo to this whole process.

In Part One I named five college football recruits who will make an "impact" in 2007 and beyond. What follows are the top five impact recruits.

Please keep in mind the word impact can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. My rubric is slanted towards guys who people will be talking about early in their careers and not necessarily the best players, period.

• Jahvid Best, Tailback (California) - The "sleeper" out of my ten, if you want to call him that. Best is a little on the light/small side (5'-10"/183 pounds) but the man can scoot (a California high school best 10.39 in the 100-yard dash). There are only a handful of people every year who are that fast and are legitimate football players. Think Ted Ginn, Reggie Bush, those types of zoom zoomers. Best may be the next. Video here and here. Strange video here.

• Joe McKnight, Athlete (USC or LSU or Ole Miss) - McKnight is considered by many to be the best recruit in this year's class. People compare him to Reggie Bush because of his versatility (15 yards/carry, 30 yards/reception) but he's a little slower (10.75 compared to 10.41 in the 100 meter dash). That said McKnight can do it and should start out as a running back. Video here, here, here.
  

• Noel Devine, Running Back (West Virginia) - Many would consider Devine the nation's top recruit but his off-field elusiveness and questionable academics have muted expectations a tad. That said, outside of Reggie Bush there hasn't been a more breathtaking player to come out of the high school ranks. It's useless to give words to his abilities, just watch tape and see for yourself. He just committed to West Virginia and if he miraculously qualifies will be all over SportsCenter every Saturday night for the next three years. Boatloads of videos (~45) here. Noel Devine is a YouTube phenomena and has been since his sophomore year of high school.
  

• Everson Griffen, Defensive End (USC) - If we can return from space and into the relatively elevated stratosphere for a moment, we must talk about the amazing Everson Griffen. Aside from Devine, no other player's tape stands out more this year than Griffen's. He puts on a show running through defensive lineman and past defensive backs as a ball carries and simply blows past offensive tackles and chases down running backs way downfield as a rush end. He reportedly clocked a sub 4.5 second 40-yard-dash at a camp this year at nearly 270 pounds. Griffen is a true physical freak and there's a chance to play at the Leo end spot opposite Lawrence Jackson for the Trojans this year.

• Jimmy Clausen, Quarterback (Notre Dame) - And finally we arrive at the great Jimmy Clausen. Jimmy has been eyeballed since the middle school days as an elite quarterback prospect and so far has lived up to the billing. He'll go to the Mecca of college football, Notre Dame with expectations far beyond those of another ballyhooed prep slinger, Ron Powlus (ironically, his quarterback coach this year). Clausen is the most polished high school quarterback in ages and has a quirky personality and awesomely bad hairdo. Pair that with the hype and the fact that he's at Notre Dame and the guy is college football's biggest lightning rod ... perhaps ever. And that's before ever having taken a snap. People will most definitely be talking about this guy and so he headlines this list of the top 10 impact recruits of 2007. Video here. A few more videos here.

Alright, there it is, my list of the top 10 impact recruits. Who else should have been on this list? Who would you have omitted. Fire away (within reason).

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Impact National Recruits Part I