For many college football fans, there are three significant days throughout the year: the day of their team’s first game, the day of their team’s final game, and National Signing Day…and their significance is not necessarily in that order.

Conversely, for a FBS-level college football coach, there are two significant days every year: the day of his team’s first game and National Signing Day…and their significance is not in that order.  National Signing Day is the most important day of the year for a college football coach because, in most cases, he will have a firm grasp on his job requirements for the next season by the time his head hits the pillow that night…if it ever does. 

Imagine for a minute that you own a business and part of your job description includes successfully orchestrating employee performance in direct competition with another business owner’s employees.  But, how’d you and your competitior get those employees?  Well, you spent just about every waking moment not training your current employees contacting and even traveling to prospective new employees houses to convince them, and their families, that you have the best company and can advance their career better than anyone else in a mere four years, max.  Not only that, but you have to pretend that you worship these prospective employees even though you know that you’ve been in the business 2, 3, or 4 times longer than they’ve even been alive!  Not only that, but your competitors are talking to the same prospective employees and telling them you’re having financial, legal, and morale issues at your company whether you are or not…of course, you said the same about them but that’s beside the point.  Anyway, it all comes down to one final day when all of these prospective employees, who now have egregiously inflated egos, sit at a table with multiple breifcases, including yours and your competitiors, and make a dramatic speech before selecting the briefcase of the company they will work for.

In a nutshell, that’s what it’s like for coaches; except there is an additional legion of people breathing down their necks throughout this whole process known as fanatics, who may number in the millions.

Yesterday, college football fans celebrated and agonized over National Signing Day by burning countless hours of billable time to peruse the internet message boards, their team’s hometown online newspapers, and exchange emails full of expletives and hyperbole every time a 17-18 year old kid put a baseball cap on.

Likewise, coaches packed into their respective athletic department’s war rooms and sweat blood in anticipation, shed tears in joy and despair, shook their fists in anger, and pumped their fists with glee every time a 17-18 year old kid put a baseball cap on.

All that being said, there are three major recruiting ranking services: Scout, Rivals, and ESPN.  They rarely agree on the calibur of a single recruit or the strength of a team’s incoming class.  So, we’ve taken their conclusions from yesterday and compiled them into one table for the 120 FBS-level teams.  As you can see, again, they rarely agreed.

In addition to the 5-star, 4-star, and 3-star levels, Scout also has a Top 100 while Rivals doesn’t.  ESPN doesn’t use stars in their assessment but does have a top 150 list called the ESPNU 150.  Also, for some reason, ESPN decided not to rank 13 of the 120 teams (colored in red at the bottom of ESPN’s rankings).

(We apologize about the extra space here.  The recruiting rankings table was too big to properly shrink it down to fit while still being legible.  So we just need a little extra space here so our tags don’t block out the right side of the table.)

We wanted to come up with our own compilation ranking based on the three services to settle once-and-for-all which programs 2009 classes rank where in respect to another.  So, when we compiled the above rankings, we also looked at the average ranking of each program and have used that to determine the Sparty & Friends 2009 Class Score and ranked the teams accordingly.  This ranking method results are below.  Note – for the teams ESPN did not rank (teams above in red), we only averaged the Scout and Rivals rankings to determine the S&F 2009 Class Score.

The Winners:

- LSU- With USC and Florida taking very small classes this year, LSU (arguably the nations third best talent magnet) was able to jump in and grab some serious playmakers. Look for Russell Shepard to be a legit threat at the QB position from the start with a Pat White-like style (assuming he stays at QB). Rueben Randle should be able to step in and start at receiver, adding more depth to an already deep and talent LSU receiving core.

- Alabama- Trent Richardson will probably get quite a few carries from the RB position next year; and well, the defense…it’s going to be loaded. Expect Dre Kirkpatrick and Nico Johnson to be two superstars by 2010. Nick Saban has the Tide well on their way back to greatness.

- Ohio State – People have wondered how OSU has dominated the Big 10 the last 4-5 years. It’s easy, they out-recruit the rest of the league by a mile! They brought in a defensively heavy class that includes Corey Brown and Dorian Bell; both should fit in somewhere in the usually deep defensive rotation.

The Losers:

- Pitt- This is probably the worst class Wanny’s brought in since he’s been at Pitt. The Big East is there for the taking, but classes like this won’t help much.

- Iowa- Remember Kirk Ferentz? The guy who was single handily making Iowa football a power house? Since a great 2005 class, Iowa has slowly lost their hold in some very talented areas. While they gained some pieces to help, this class is far from the solid class they needed after last year’s disaster.

- Nebraska – It’s going to take a lot more than this to bring the blackshirts back…especially in the talent rich Big 12.

The Surprises:

- USF – They made their move to become the best team in the Big East for many years to come. Seriously, when they are winning the Big East year in and out within 5 years, this class will be the reason why.

- Mississippi State – Dan Mullen had 2 months to put a class together, and he got a gem. Usually, when a coach leaves, recruits plunge. Not here.

- Stanford- Harbaugh! That’s why they hired him. He’s a great coach, recruiter, and figurehead for the future of the program (as long as he sticks around).

The Final Note: 9 of Michigan’s 21 recruits were from Florida. Spread option and Speeeeeeeeeeeed. That’s why.

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