The early leader for the top recruit is Minnesota offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson. At No. 2 just behind him is a nifty running back out of Texas we've mentioned before named Lache Seastrunk. Rivals is touting the state of Texas this year while noting it may be a bit of a down year for quarterbacks.
I'm not calling revolution, but there's a new brand of football in town fresh off the pitch in one California high school. Piedmont High School coaches have developed an offense in the last year which sometimes allows all 11 players on the field to be eligible. Pay attention kids, because this is something that can happen in college football and not in the innovation-hostile NFL.
"Going into the season, we thought that either we're going to get fired or we're going to transform the game because of the innovative aspects and the wealth of ideas," [Piedmont High School coach Kurt] Bryan said. "Luckily, it turned out to be the latter."
Clearly. Like any innovation just one year into development, it needs work. However, the offense is already catching on.
Bryan said coaches from 35 to 40 Division I-A schools, and from every conference, have contacted him and Humphries looking for information on the offense. Apparently, the college coaches are quick studies.
[Piedmont High School Director of Football Operations Steve] Humphries said he saw San Jose State run multiple A-11 plays last season against Stanford. Florida ran an offensive play recalling the A-11 against LSU. And Rutgers and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers ran punt plays containing aspects of Piedmont's offense.
In other words, the evolution/revolution has already been televised. Cool.
Much more on the history of a new offense is available at this Rivals.com article, and the A-11 website. I look forward to a more prominent introduction this fall in college football, maybe even a College GameDay segment on it, hm? Get to work, Herbie.
(Via: my brother, who passed along the Rivals article)
For over two years now, a cloud has hung over USC's head through the stalemate of the NCAA's investigation into allegations that former star tailback and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush accepted cash and gifts against NCAA rules. Obviously some sort of punishment against USC would be leveled if the NCAA found truth in the allegations.
Everyone knows USC is going to take some kind of hit from the NCAA, but the way high profile recruits keep arriving sends the message they're not worried about those pending sanctions.
Remember him? The former Rivals.com #1 recruit, with offers from everyone? He's now buried in a Philadelphia Daily News story about holes in Penn State's roster as the Nittany Lions enter spring practice is the following:
On offense, strengths are at wide receiver as the top three receivers (Derrick Williams, Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood) all return for their senior seasons
Ho hum, which is not exactly how you want your senior year to be treated when you're all-everything and can name your college. You're not even supposed to have a senior year when you get that kind of billing. Welcome to Williams' world, paragraph ten and so very far from the headlines.
Interesting find in Olin Buchanan's Mailbag this week at Rivals.com: a trend has emerged in college football whereby teams winning a title ending in any year ending in an 8 experience a long, painful championship drought.
Recent victims: Notre Dame has not won a title since 1988. USC waited until 2003 after claiming the 1978 crown. Ohio State endured a more than 30-year wait between their 1968 and 2002 crowns. Scary stuff here.
Everyone wants a championship, but maybe it's a devil's bargain in reaching for this year's title?
Other victims of years ending in "8":
TCU was named the Associated Press national champion in 1938 – the third year of the poll – and even though players such as Bob Lilly and LaDainian Tomlinson have since come through Fort Worth, the Horned Frogs have not won another crown.
Michigan won in 1948 and did not win another national title until 1997, and that one was split with Nebraska. The '58 champion was LSU, which waited 45 years before celebrating another national championship.
Ok so maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing for TCU to win a championship this year. They've waited long enough, maybe another drought is worth the price of ending the current agony.
Last year, Tulsa became the only college football program in history to have a 1,000 yard back, a 5,000 yard passer and three 1,000 yard receivers. A while back I mentioned that one of those 1,000 yard receivers was fullback John Clay.
He led his team with eights catches for 92 yards that day and closed the season with 69 receptions for 1024 yards (14.8 average) and seven touchdowns. Clay was also third on the team in rushing with 304 yards (5.3 average).
Not bad for a guy who by many accounts was only modestly recruited by the school he signed with, a class-filler type recruit.
The Tulsa story continues to get better. Heavily overlooked is the fact that one of their receivers set an NCAA reception average record.
[Brennan] Marion last season averaged an astounding 31.9 yards per catch on 39 receptions, breaking the 39-year-old Division I-A mark set by Houston's Elmo Wright, who averaged 27.9 yards on 43 receptions in 1968. That's an amazing accomplishment, especially considering Marion was in his first season at Tulsa.
Much-hyped Notre Dame was overshadowed for once today, but here's guessing their fans don't mind. As a rule Notre Dame players seem to be a bit overrated by the recruiting services but across the nation there seems to be a vibe that Notre Dame's Signing Day haul was commendable. Rivals currently gives the Irish the #2 signing class, not far behind Alabama despite only 23 commitments to the Tide's 32.
So what gives? Was it luck of the Irish or simply a shrewd recruiting season for beleaguered coach Charlie Weis?
Here's guessing playing time was a major factor. Notre Dame played an army of young players last year. They looked terrible for it, posting the team's worst record in seemingly forever. Somehow that bad record and little hope for next year could be overlooked by many.
Among the best gets for Notre Dame: Ohio tight end Kyle Rudolph (nation's #20 player), California Quarterback Dayne Crist the nation's #25 player, tallish Minnesota receiver Michael Floyd (#27), Oregon defensive end Ethan Johnson (#32), Nebraska offensive lineman Trevor Robinson (#37), Michigan tailback Jonas Gray (#72) and Chicago linebacker Darius Fleming (#89).
Notre Dame also managed to steal defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore at the last minute from Texas A&M. Wednesday's big story was the retention of 6'-4" Virginia receiver Deion Walker who appeared ready to freak out and head to Penn State before sticking with the Irish.
Recruiting wasn't always like this. Until recently, the broad-based networks like Rivals.com and Scout weren't even an idea in someone's mind.
Not long ago it was old school, with names like Allen Wallace, Tom Lemming and Rick Kimbrel. They (and others) published once-a-year magazines, perhaps a newsletter or a 900 number for the hopelessly committed recruiting fan to know something so simple as the name, high school, height, weight and brief athletic summary of a recruit. It also helped to know where he was headed, of course.
It was still a small world back then. Things were done in hard copy, weeks in advance. Every kid he called got excited to hear his voice.
But Kimbrel always had a sense it could be bigger. The 900 number they'd started was doing brisk business. People loved the real-time information they could get. And it wasn't just fans. Lawyers, doctors, even Nike chairman Phil Knight, signed up.
The athletes he scouted saw the power in it too. One mention in Blue Chip Illustrated and they were set. One of his first big finds was a wide receiver out of South Central L.A. named Keyshawn Johnson.
"Keyshawn would always come by and hang out in my office. He was at Valley College at the time, but he had no place to go," Kimbrel said. "So he'd come in and read through all the magazines we'd publish and just talk to us."
That would pretty much never happen now.
Indeed. In fact, a solid handful of kids with offers from around the nation annually avoid the recruiting writers altogether, leaving coaches, friends, teammates and sometimes family in the dark until they've made up their minds.
And in that time, the 900 numbers are mostly a relic, giving way to Rivals, Scout and a handful of other comprehensive recruiting services. According to the article Rivals now has 180,000 subscribers to go along with over 70 million page views on signing day. Yahoo! recently bought Rivals for $100 million.
Rivals is already publishing some content on the Yahoo! Sports platform but I haven't seen Yahoo! content circulate in Rivals sites. These are strange days where recruiting sites - once the basement business and realm of the 900 number for updates - sell for millions of dollars to former Silicon Valley search engines gone big business.
I have yet to locate a sale price but will update this as we find out more about this merger.
What gives? I don't know, but it's interesting. It's one thing for a random site operator to choose independence over network affiliation as has happened at both Scout.com and competitor Rivals.com. But this is an entirely different animal when three affiliates of high-profile schools leave like that.
I first remember hearing about BuckNuts' departure and thinking: ok, that's interesting. Maybe they had an independent streak in them. But not long after that I began hearing rumors that two other top 10 programs would soon depart. Well, today is the day that rumor came to realization. Something is officially rotten in Denmark.
Recruiting service Rivals.com has released its initial "Rivals 100" list of the nation's top 100 recruits. The list will inevitably be adjusted a handful of times between now and signing day in 2010 but its a decent starting point for the shape of college football recruiting over the next year.
For over two years now, a cloud has hung over USC's head through the stalemate of the 
Remember him? The former 
Interesting find in 
Last year, Tulsa became the only college football program in history to have a 1,000 yard back, a 5,000 yard passer and three 1,000 yard receivers. A while back I mentioned that 
Much-hyped Notre Dame was overshadowed for once today, but here's guessing their fans don't mind. As a rule Notre Dame players seem to be a bit overrated by the recruiting services but across the nation there seems to be a vibe that 
Recruiting wasn't always like this. Until recently, the broad-based networks like Rivals.com and Scout weren't even an idea in someone's mind.
