ClayNation: Signing day is done -- but recruiting never ends

The annual pursuit of 17- and 18-year-old boys has ended. And the mythical recruiting champions of college football have been crowned. That's because National Signing Day 2007 has come and passed. Once again the Southeastern Conference rules the nation.

Seven, count 'em, seven, of the top ten Rivals recruiting classes in the nation are from the SEC. This is absurd. Rivals ranked Florida No. 1, Tennessee No. 3, LSU No. 4, South Carolina No. 6, Auburn No. 7, Georgia No. 9 and Alabama No. 10. Yep, according to these rankings Georgia had the ninth-best class in the country, but fourth best in their own division of the SEC. And pity poor Alabama -- 10th in the country is only good enough to get them seventh in the SEC.

Fort Dorchester High's Carlos Dunlap commits to play for Florida on National Signing Day. (AP)

At this point it's always important to throw out the inexact science cliché when it comes to recruiting. Or point out that spring recruiting championships don't necessarily translate to championships on the actual field. But all of these homilies don't detract from this central tenet of the recruiting landscape: The SEC has many more players who could have chosen to play college football anywhere in the country than any other conference in America. It isn't even close. Just when you think Southeastern Conference football can't get any more competitive, it happens.

That's because each year, if this is possible, recruiting seems to gain in importance down here. For several years I was willing to keep track of recruiting via the newspaper commitment tracker in my native Nashville. That all changed once I got to college and realized that everything I read in the newspaper was discussed, analyzed, and detailed in a much more satisfactory fashion via online message boards for free.

Now I'm signed up for recruiting updates, was one of many SEC fans attempting to sign onto message boards to make sure everyone who had committed signed with my team on National Signing Day, and sat cursing when the servers were overloaded and kept me from getting the latest updates. Yep, the servers were overloaded. In addition to my Tennessee message board scanning, just for fun I tried to sign on to the LSU, Georgia, Auburn, and Alabama message boards. All were overloaded around noon Wednesday. Put simply, there's really no end to how much more popular college football recruiting can get.

Already the ferocity of the recruiting interest in SEC country dwarfs NFL Draft coverage. For a variety of reasons. Primary among them is that the NFL Draft virtually compels performance (you choose not to play for the team that chooses you and you don't get paid) whereas college recruiting is an infinitely more personal selection.

Recruits kick the proverbial tires of your campus, eye the stadium, survey the weight room, sample the women, and then choose whether or not to play for your team. On top of that, your team generally competes for these kids with hated rivals. If, God forbid, a coveted recruit spurns your program for a team you detest, it all seems, somehow, like a personal rejection of your own fandom.

Southwest Dekalb High School's Scotty Williams commits to play at Mississippi. (AP)

Paradoxically, recruits who select your school serve as endorsements of your sagacious rooting interest. Like you, they've weighed the options of your rival and found them somehow wanting. Once more you've been vindicated. Worst of all is the recruit who initially commits to your program and then vacillates, waffles, and changes his mind. Ask any Tennessee fan whether watching Carnell "Cadillac" Williams (a former Vol commit) score for Auburn didn't hurt just a little more because of how close he was to wearing orange.

Ultimately, of course, signing day and its lead-up offer the allure of victorious recruiting battles symbolizing future gridiron conquests over your hated rival. College football rivalries take 364 days to germinate. Unlike any other sport where rivals play much more frequently, the college football hate has to be distilled, the passion wrung from four seasons of fermenting fandom. Sixty minutes of football is simply not sufficient to contain the ardent discord. So recruiting battles help fill the gaping void of an almost eternal offseason.

Auburn and Alabama might not play again until November 2007, but each morning Auburn and Alabama are dueling in the mind of a 17-year-old recruit who could make the difference in the Iron Bowl. So you bet we college football fans care, and care an inordinate amount. And with the ascendancy of the Internet and its almost real-time updating of every recruiting nuance, keeping track of the supposed future has never been easier. With constant recruiting updates, a 60-minute ballgame adds in a running 365-day scoreboard.

Confession time: I'm addicted to recruiting too. Which is disappointing in a way because I've tried to avoid this addiction for a long time. Primarily because I remember what being a 17-year-old boy was like. Heck, that was just 10 years ago. That's why I'm completely convinced there has never been a worse decision-making group than 17-year-old males. The only close competition is boys ages 15, 16, and 18. Notwithstanding this fact, here are nine signs you might be taking college football recruiting and its resultant signing day too seriously.

1. You get an instant e-mail alert of the latest commitments sent to your work e-mail address and start doing fist pumps and spinning circles in your chair while seated at your computer. When your boss catches you, immediately feign interest in your work and pretend something good has just happened. Then you wipe your brow and promise you won't ever do this again. Six days later you fall off the wagon and repeat your celebration.

2. You analyze the weather of a recruit's hometown in an effort to determine whether or not his delayed signing is evidence of tampering by a rival school or simply a function of the snow.