Friday, February 6, 2009
Rivals.com bestowed 33 high school senior football players with the top recruiting honor — a five-star ranking.
The scary part? Fourteen of them signed with Southeastern Conference schools. That’s nine more than in any other conference — the Big 12, Pac-10 and Atlantic Coast Conference grabbed five each.
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Before expelling more negative energy about Rivals.com’s recruiting rankings, realize you’re wrong. Sure, the Web site gives some players two stars and they turn into first round picks in the NFL Draft. That’s expected. Evaluating thousands of players perfectly and accounting for their maturation isn’t going to happen.
But when a player gets five stars, it’s usually indicative of future success. Ask Vince Young, Reggie Bush or Adrian Peterson — all of whom went on to illustrious careers after Rivals.com gave them five stars. Want defenders? Rivals.com ranked LaMarr Woodley, Ernie Sims and Haloti Ngata at the top of their classes. Now, they’re all NFL standouts.
This means the SEC dominated the recruiting circuit this season almost as well as it has dominated on the field in the last half-decade.
Alabama snagged running back Trent Richardson. Louisiana State kept wide receiver Rueben Randle in state. Georgia got cornerback Branden Smith. Florida signed linebacker Jelani Jenkins. Get ready to hear these names a lot over the next four years.
Ten SEC teams — everyone except Vanderbilt and Kentucky — hauled in classes that Rivals.com ranked in the top 25 in the nation. Alabama and LSU ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Georgia and Florida ranked No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.
Before criticizing the team rankings, realize Florida, USC, LSU, Georgia and Notre Dame are the only schools to be ranked in the top 10 in each of the last three years. Throw out Notre Dame and that’s an impressive list that includes three national championship teams and eight teams that have won BCS bowl games.
These juggernaut recruiting classes ensure that the best football will continue to be played below the Mason-Dixon Line for years to come. Next year, the SEC will try to become the first conference ever to produce four straight national champions.
The only question is, which team will it be? It’s going to happen. In every aspect, the SEC is ahead of the rest of the college football world.
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Hooray for Kansas’ second Big Monday game in a row next week when it will play Missouri on the road.
Why is this something to cheer about? Because if Kansas didn’t play Monday, it would play Wednesday and conflict with a new episode of ABC’s Lost.
Lost’s fifth season kicked off last month and has once again proven to be one of the two best shows on network television. The other? NBC’s Friday Night Lights, which airs new episodes at 7:00 on Fridays.
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