Signing Maze Vol. 1
After giving everyone a day off from the maze, I think it is time to get back to it. Today there will be parties on some campuses with people partying like it is 1999. Parties will be going late into the night for some and not so much for others. It is signing day and today you can see were you are in all your battles and also look into the crystal ball for what you expect in the upcoming season based on your standing on recruits. Today will turn people into analysts: knowing were to spend resources based on likelihood for success, available resources and needs, I am sure egos will come into the equation too.
We are going to go through the maze of the power conferences for now and see what the human coaches got and what they needed. We will start off with the ACC. I recommend you take a look at the forums to see the fantastic work done by genuvar on ACC recruiting this season.
ACC table:
From the table above it seems like Miami(FL), North Carolina, and Virginia Tech have gotten their houses in order, they only need 1 more guy each and I am sure they will get their man. Everyone can pick up a few tricks from these coaches on how to get recruiting right. Boston College is locked in a few battles but they also have a few guys signed up already. Maryland is lagging behind everyone, not sure what happened with Maryland, I hope it is just a case of a lot of battles but from what I heard on the fabulous podcast The Devil and Friends (you should check it out if you haven't) Maryland might not have recruited anyone this year. Everyone in the conference has done a good enough job recruiting this season. Curious to see were these classes will be ranked at the end of it all.
Lets us move on to the BIG 12. Here things are interesting, we have some schools battling for the same recruits. Texas and A&M are going for the same recruits and somebody is not going to fill their class. The schools are close so they are bound to battle for recruits. Texas has the elite prestige advantage and 2 extra schollies, so I would say advantage Texas all the way. I think the coach at A&M might have an ego problem or maybe he got lost in the recruiting maze.
Big 12 table:
The table clearly shows Baylor and Oklahoma as having taken care of business and now they just sit back and watch everyone battle it out. Nebraska just have a few guys missing, same with Missouri but Kansas State has a long way to go only having signed 9 when they need 17.
Wisconsin has a long way to go in the BIG 10, they have only signed 5 of the 13 guys they need. This might be problematic considering they have to face some tough teams this year. I hope they manage to get the rest of the guys they want. Penn State like the other teams looked at earlier has managed to settle their business early and now can go to a beach somewhere and relax with a drink in hand. The other elites in the conference have signed the majority of their players.
Big 10 table:
Thus far the PAC 10 seems like the conference that has it together. Everyone has signed most of the guys they need with USC out here just chilling and taking in some southern California sun because they have signed all their guys. The other schools are hot on their heels too because they are almost there with their signings. I wonder how good the classes everyone out west got.
PAC 10 table:
The SEC like the PAC 10 also seems to have things figured out. LSU has filled its class and it is time to go to the gulf and have some fun. South Carolina though needs to do some work into that list of 7 players they need to lock up. The new coach everyone would have had their eyes on at Alabama has managed to get 9 out of 14 locked up already and the rest should be coming. These schools are relatively close to each other such that there are battles for talent and that makes things interesting. With the proximity in mind and people being close to fillings their classes I think it is safe to say people probably know their lanes for recruiting.
SEC table:
Do not worry folks in the other conferences, we are going to look at them as well but to start out we wanted to look at these few. This was written after the first signing cycle so when you read this, the numbers might have changed a bit for some of the schools listed here. We will try to get a look at the other conferences tomorrow so keep an eye out for that. Good luck in your battles everyone.
