The Worst Parts of National Signing Day 2012

National signing day is one of the most celebrated holidays for college football fans, and yesterday proved to be a day full of big announcements, some big surprises and a lot of celebration and jubilation for fans of some of the top programs in the country.

It marked the end of a long journey for many of the top high school senior football players in the country, and it was certainly fun to get to see them all make one of the biggest decisions of their life in front of a nationwide audience.

Still, as with any big-time event like this, there were a few less-than-desirable moments as well. 

Here's a look at some of the worst parts of national signing day 2012. 

 

Jordan Payton commits to the entire West Coast

Dear Jordan Payton, pick a school!

That seemed to be the consensus reaction from many college football fans yesterday, especially those living out West, who saw the 4-star receiver prospect commit and de-commit to three different schools—USC, Cal and Washington—before finally settling on UCLA on national signing day.

What makes it worse is Payton had switched his commitment from Cal to Washington the day before national signing day before making the stunning last-second switch and leaving the Huskies in the lurch.

The bottom line is, when you end up looking more indecisive than Gunner Kiel, you probably didn’t handle the whole “recruiting process” as well as you should have.

You want to see what’s under my shirt?

Many recruits must have been bumping Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up" on the drive over to their announcement ceremonies because they felt compelled to take their shirt off, although thankfully they spared us the whole whipping it around their head like a helicopter routine.

With the whole “choosing a hat” thing seemingly getting played out, recruits are now deciding to change things up a bit by taking off their shirts to reveal their college decision.

Of course this led to earpieces falling out as expected, and Rece Davis then having to ask, “Can you hear me?” to players for five minutes while a poor assistant wrestled to get it back in.

Whatever happened to the good old days of simply just saying, “I’m going to play at so and so University,” and then signing a letter of intent without a big fuss?

I’ll be honest, I think I actually prefer the hat choice to this new trend of ripping off shirts, especially now that they’ve got the new cool-looking throwback-style hats.

Ohio State fans are getting cocky already

Twitter and the college football message board scene were ripe with Ohio State pride yesterday, as the Buckeye faithful proclaimed their program to be back on top of the Big Ten after one great recruiting class.

This had to be expected after Urban Meyer signed on to become the next head coach at Ohio State back in late November.

Yes, Meyer brought a lot of great young talent to Columbus this year, and he deserves credit for assembling the type of class he did in such a short amount of time (although he’s also receiving a fair share of criticism from some fellow Big Ten coaches, who didn’t exactly appreciate his recruiting tactics.)

Still, one top-rated recruiting class doesn’t guarantee future BCS championships, so maybe you should at least let Meyer coach the Buckeyes in an actual game and try to revitalize a team that went 6-7 last year before raising expectations so high.

It’s OK to get excited, but don’t go overdoing it, Ohio State fans.

Why don’t you go ask Florida fans how Meyer fared the season after he brought in the star-studded 2010 recruiting class at Florida?

The Josh Harvey-Clemons’ saga

Five-star linebacker Josh Harvey-Clemons was the first player to announce his decision on ESPNU yesterday morning, but it took the highly touted recruit more than 24 hours to actually send his letter of intent to Georgia, the school of his choice, which created an ongoing drama throughout the day.

Family interference is figured to be the main reason that it took so long to get everything sent in.

Guiding a kid in the right direction is one thing, but over-asserting your authority and trying to force him to reconsider his favorite school is another.

Deontay Greenberry switches from Notre Dame to Houston

Deontay Greenberry pulled off the biggest shocker of national signing day when he announced he would be signing with Houston instead of Notre Dame, the school which he had been committed to since last spring.

Many Irish fans figured it was all but a certainty that the 4-star receiver would end up with his cousin Tee Shepard in South Bend, but Greenberry raised eyebrows when he paid a visit to Houston this past weekend, which ultimately proved to be a foreboding sign that his heart was elsewhere.

Greenberry indicated he only picked Notre Dame because Shepard was going there, telling The Fresno Bee, "I was going to Notre Dame for the wrong reason. Tee had committed to Notre Dame, and I wanted to be where he was at. Then I started sitting down and really thinking what's best for me, where I would feel most comfortable. I've talked with him, and he's good with it."

Brian Kelly probably would have wished Greenberry would have indicated that to him at some point in the seven months that he stayed committed to Notre Dame so he could have at least had some more solid footing on the the rug that was pulled out from under him on national signing day.

Notable names missing

Four of the star recruits that were absent on national signing day were coveted wide receiver recruits Davonte Neal and Stefon Diggs, blue-chip tackle prospect Jordan Diamond and top-rated quarterback Jameis Winston

While it's fine that those four are taking their time and making sure they make the best decision for the future, they left a few notable holes in national signing day and they left the fans of the final schools they're considering feeling a little anxious.

 

Pedro Gomez reporting from Penn State

If you watched the national signing day festivities on ESPNU yesterday, you saw that ESPN had a ton of reporters out and about around the country at all the different majors schools.

While pretty much all of them did a terrific job covering the schools that they were assigned to, one reporter that proved to be rather useless was Pedro Gomez.

“Breaking news: not much news going on around here.”

I know Penn State’s been a mainstay in the headlines over the last few months, but given that the Nittany Lions brought in such a mediocre class that lacked any national names that people cared about, and given that their own new coach wasn’t even at the school yesterday, I didn’t see the need to have a reporter there feeding us useless information that nobody outside of Happy Valley cared about. 

I would have much rather seen a reporter stationed at a school like Stanford or Michigan—you know, schools that were actually making some news yesterday with the recruits they were bringing in. 

What’s that, Pedro? Tommy Schutt’s not signing with Penn State? Wow. Great. Thanks for that report. We’ve only known that for the last two months.

No love for Kyle Flood?

One of the most overlooked stories of national signing day was the remarkable job that new Rutgers coach Kyle Flood did.

After being unexpectedly thrown into the head coaching position just a few days before national signing day, Flood managed to keep Rutgers’ strong 2012 class intact, holding on to big-name prospects like OT Chris Muller, WR Leonte Carroo and LB Quanzell Lambert, while adding the school’s top target, 5-star DE Darius Hamilton, the night before national signing day.

The Kyle Flood era is already off to a great start, and judging from the type of leadership during adversity kind of personality he showed, he looks like he could have a very bright future ahead of him leading the Scarlet Knights.