FanHouse Recruiting

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.

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.

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin is never far from the headlines, even when it's unintentional. So it goes with this story about his last-minute pitch to South Carolina receiver Alshon Jeffery. Deliberately holed up in a hotel on the eve of signing day by his coach, Jeffrey listened to desperate pitches from South Carolina, Tennessee and Southern California.

The one-time Southern Cal commit ultimately chose South Carolina, but not before Kiffin pledged "that if he chose the Gamecocks, he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like all the other players from that state who had gone to South Carolina." And to that, Jeffery seems to have taken serious offense.

Just over a month past college football's official signing day one of the last major uncommitted college football recruits, Florida tight end Orson Charles has signed with Georgia among a host of suitors. The Tampa Plant High School product -- same school as collegiate superstar turned NFL flameout Mike Williams -- picked the Bulldogs over USC and Tennessee after having also visited Florida and Florida State.

He's also the answer to a trivia question. You might remember him as the person who accidentally destroyed Florida's 2006 BCS Championship crystal football on a recruiting visit. Fortunately it was insured and eventually replaced. Unfortunately for Florida guilt over his goof wasn't enough to secure his services.

Sparring, because his father was a pugilist, get it? Good. In a bit of a red on red turned cardinal and gold on powder keg blue and gold moment, USC linebacker coach Ken Norton Jr. aired grievances this week with dear old alma mater UCLA. Reports the Los Angeles Times:

[Norton] said UCLA has told prospective players that he would be joining Coach Rick Neuheisel's staff if defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker leaves for another job.

"It's coming from there and it's wrong and it's not true," said Norton.

He then threw another barb, saying:

"It's kind of a pattern of what happened in the past," Norton said in mentioning Slick Rick's latest alleged escapade.

Predictably, UCLA fans are in flames, treating Norton like some combination of Judas and Benedict Arnold. UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel took the unusual step of releasing a statement denying the allegations. Predictably, this followed:

"If DeWayne leaves, I would consider several candidates for the defensive coordinator job. Kenny probably would have been among those considered, with no guarantees. However, his quotes in the paper say he is staying at USC, so we wish him well."

Translation: good luck ever getting hired by UCLA. Ahhh, catty man fights. Usually this stuff is so NFL.

An early signing period may be coming to college football. In fact, in a recent American Football Coaches Association poll, 73% of coaches favored an AFCA recommendation for an early signing period. Signing Day would then shift from February to December. The AFCA sent those findings to coaches, and Pete Carroll flipped.

Carroll is especially upset - he faxed back his response with "this is a terrible change!!" scrawled across the bottom

Exclamation point exclamation point (!!). Nice.

I'm with Carroll on this one, the proposal would be ridiculously unfair to the athletes. It also likely furthers Carroll's opinion that other coaches are "lazy". Coaches are still being hired and fired after December, the season's not over, and not all players have been able to make recruiting visits or would rather make them once the high school and college football seasons have ended.

There's no reason to lock players into commitments especially when recruiting is a two-way, usually lengthy information gathering process. The greater amount of time given to it, the more all parties are able to gather about the other and make the best possible decision.

This is bad policy.

I've got a forum here at FanHouse to make my opinion known, but I admire Carroll's less nuanced Fax Machine Diplomacy. Maybe he's onto something.

Here's hoping your school isn't using whiskey as mouthwash thinking about who it woke up next to this morning

Themes

USC Soars Late, Pulls Shocker

Tallahassee Lincoln kids love to flirt, and they're never lacking for suitors. But when push comes to shove, the vast majority of them break hearts and stick with the hometown Seminoles. So it came as a complete shock to many people when highly regarded cornerback T.J. Bryant cast his lot with Pete Carroll and USC.

USC lost out on Alabama linebacker Jerrell Harris, but did pull in Bryant, Michigan linebacker Nick Perry and Los Angeles linebacker Uona Kavienga throughout the second half of the day to slide into 7th place in the Rivals.com rankings. It's been a great month of recruiting overall as USC recently got a pledge from the nation's top player for 2009 in quarterback Matt Barkley along with several other preliminary top 100 recruits. Damn.

Back To The Future

As expertly stated by EDSBS, the top of the recruiting rankings have a certain 1985 feel. Alabama, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Miami ... thank heaven for moth balls.

Miscellany

Notre Dame has a great deal to prove on the field after last year's disaster and two consecutive BCS flops. However, the Irish were magnificent in holding together their recruiting class and finding some decent guys in the trenches (at least on defense, anyway). The same can be said for UCLA after the departure of coach Karl Dorrell.

Jumpin' Sam McGuffie briefly flirted with California, but he's come home now and will stick with Michigan.

Puuuuuuuuuuuuure fiction.

Refresher: a high school football recruit out of Nevada named Kevin Hart made a commitment to California several days ago. Problem was, Cal hadn't recruited him. Neither had any other schools. That prompted an investigation and the involvement of law enforcement.

The story soon centered around a mysterious recruiter who allegedly duped the poor high school senior.

Turns out we were all duped. SportsByBrooks is reporting (via the Reno Gazette-Journal) that Kevin Hart has admitted making it all up.

"I wanted to play D-I ball more than anything. When I realized that wasn't going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality. I am sorry for disappointing and embarrassing my family, coaches, Fernley High School, the involved universities and reporters covering the story."

Now the school district "continues to conduct its internal investigation into how so many people were duped by the high school senior."

I betcha that'll look good on his transcripts.

Previously at FanHouse
Football Recruit Commits to Cal, Law Enforcement Gets Involved

"At heart, I'm a 'Cane"

Is Miami back? The 'Canes sure aren't hurting for having signed Harris in assembling the nation's #4 recruiting class. Now about that offense . . .

Good debate here between ESPN's Robert Smith and Jesse Palmer.

Palmer says Terrelle Pryor is raw as a passer, and would be better suited with his skills at spread schools Oregon and Michigan (welcome to the modern age, fellas). Ohio State's pro-style offense involves a fullback and tight ends and might be overwhelming for a guy that raw.

Smith makes it known Pryor simply won't redshirt and if he went to Ohio State, its offense would most certainly change. Lost in all that discussion: Penn State, the presumed favorite of Pryor's father. Good stuff.

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.