I’ve long been fascinated by the dynamics of the final days of every recruiting year. The players who remain uncommitted take on far greater importance than they would have had otherwise.
No doubt, Marcus Lattimore is a running back who could have gone almost anywhere. But if he’d chosen South Carolina a month ago, it wouldn’t have been nearly as big a deal. The same is true for others. There’s just not as much competition for attention.
What if there’d been a story today that read like this:
“Michael Dyer, the nation’s top running back, and Trovon Reed, the top receiver in the state of Louisiana, said Tuesday they plan to sign with Auburn.
“Meanwhile, defensive tackle Byran Jones said he’d chosen Arkansas over Auburn.”
How much attention would most have paid to Jones choosing Arkansas? I maintain not much.
That’s not to say that the prospects left Auburn’s board don’t matter. They certainly do. Landing defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker on Monday was a major coup. Getting Jones and Corey Lemonier would be as well.
But in the end, what matters is the class as a whole, not who committed when.
Dyer, clearly, could have made his recruitment a story followed breathlessly all around college football. But he knew what he wanted to do, did it early and spent the rest of the time doing his best to help his chosen school recruit.
Others have done the same. Others have chosen to take the process to the very end. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Some say they really haven’t decided, though it’s hard to understand how you could go through the recruiting grinder and still not know what you want to do a year later.
It’ll all be over in a few hours. Then we can all add up the results, see where things stand and look ahead to 2011. But the truth is we won’t really know until we see what happens on the field in the years to come.
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