Wednesday, February 2, 2011

National Signing Day

Today is considered to be National Signing Day, which is the day that most of the heavily touted high school football players declare which schools they will be attending. lately, such entities as ESPN have been trying to hype this day, even going as far as to televise these kids as they announce which school will get their services.

As with anything of a similar nature, people attempt to determine who the 'winners' and 'losers' are. For instance, Florida State and Auburn are considered to have two of the strongest recruiting classes of the year. Such projections are not only meaningless, but completely asinine. To state that one schools 17 to 18 year old kids are going to outperform another schools' kids is ridiculous. How is this determined? By seeing which schools got more of the players ranked within a specific criteria? Just because pundits happen to think that certain kids make up the 150 best high school football players in the country doesn't mean that A. They will be productive in college or B. That they will considered in the top 150 from that class later when they graduate, or even next year.

Also, televising these kids as they put on the hat of whatever school that are going to attend is utterly ridiculous. People continually act surprised when big time recruits walk around and act as though everything should be handed to them. Or that their egos are incredibly inflated. Well, televising their decisions on which school to attend or discussing it in detail does not help. In fact, it just further fans the flames. Continually discussing their thought process, poring over anything said prior to their decision to try to guess where they end up, and trying to make this the biggest sports story of the day only furthers the sense of entitlement.

Yes, this is a big deal - to those kids and the schools they choose. It just shouldn't be a televised event. And it definitely should not come with a list of who 'won' and 'lost' the recruiting war.

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