Signing day just blew past us it seems, spring games and practices are being scheduled, we're waiting on the release of our respective team's schedules and as it stands right now those things are all somewhat "back burner" issues for your favorite college football team. 2012 is important and while the players are getting it with mat drills and weights the coaches main point of focus is elsewhere.

2013 is where the mind is for the guys in the upstairs offices. Identifying targets, streamlining their big boards and figuring out what players they want to be pressing for the 2013 cycle. This all truly gets jumped started with the Junior Day affairs that we're hearing about around the country.

I got a chance to talk with Brandon Cavanaugh at Husker Locker as we did a little Recruiting 101, I highly recommend a listen as we hit all of the nuts and bolts of the process in this first part.

The "Junior Day" has become a big deal around the college football nation as the events become increasingly publicized, they shift in their strategy and coaches attempt to hone the day to their team's individual approach to attacking recruiting. Just a few years ago we saw Mack Brown and Texas grab 13 kids in February for the upcoming 2011 cycle. That is no longer the case as the Longhorns have altered there strategy, electing to offer few athletes, slow play their way into the summer in order to keep their options open and get further into the evaluation process.

Other schools are opting out of the "get a bunch of guys on campus and grab a gang of commitments" business as well. North Carolina elected to host two junior days; a special invitation only day during the UNC-Duke game for high priority kids which yielded two commits and a more traditional junior day to establish relationships with the state's prospects as a whole.

These days have swelled in their importance in recent years as the football recruiting calendar continues to accelerate despite the contracted nature of football recruiting in comparison to other sports.

We all know that the NCAA rulebook is a massive ball of technicalities, specific measures and common sense compiled together in a 400 page manual to govern every aspect of the interaction between coaches, players, boosters, fans, schools and recruits. Reading it is not the most fun thing in the world and understanding it generally takes a cup of coffee, some scratch paper and the pdf file open for continued referencing.

Well to combat that an NCAA working group is looking to streamline some of these rules through tackling transfers, athletic dorms and public commenting on recruits in some rewriting of the guidelines. Not quite the cream cheese for athlete's bagels movement but three issues that would be a good start to simplifying the rules and opening up some of the red tape that exists in the arena.

Quickly the big proposed changes include:

-Elimination of the one year sit out period for student athletes that elect to transfer.
-Green lighting athlete dorms.
-Allowing coaches to publicly comment on recruits.

Pretty cut and dry folks. The elimination of the one year penalty for transferring would allow athletes to play immediately without having to transfer to an FCS or lower division school. Athlete dorms would return to the arena for the first time since their 1991-1996 phase out period and the final option is pretty self explanatory, it would eliminate the gag order that exists for coaches where prospective student athletes are concerned.

Each measure has its merits and after the jump we'll give our thoughts on the three moves coming down from the NCAA.

Jim Delany, long time "pro-BCS" champion and Big Ten commissioner, turned plenty of heads this week with his declaration that the Big Ten would stand in support of a four team playoff if the BCS was to be restructured. A full 180 for the league and its leader, a bit of a head scratcher of sorts, but a move that folks pushing for a playoff can truly count as their first step towards having their thirst sated.

The most interesting part of Delany's push was not that he made this switch, a much hated and berated figure in college football moving to be on the popular side was a smart move to remain entrenched in the fabric of the sport. No, the interesting part was the push for the homefield semifinal sites for the games as opposed to involving the BCS Bowls in the playoff.

For starters that's not a bad move, as a guy who has never been anti-BCS the plus-one or a four team playoff was the compromise that I've been open to accepting all along. Playing the games in the BCS Bowl sites would be a tall task with regards to placing the burden on fans to travel or folks with no allegiance attempting to sellout the stadiums that would be involved. Instead put the games on the home sites of the top two teams where the higher seeds get the advantage of not traveling and you have a built in sure sell to the fans.

The thought of a four team playoff does differ from the plus-one idea that was bandied about that could have pulled the wool over everyone with the BCS just playing a title after the dust settled on the conference bowl tie-ins. This isn't a move I'm truly opposed to and as it moves forward with the support of other leagues my interest lies in the rules enacted, the process of selection and what happens to the 34 other bowl games teams play in.

Do the losers of the games play for the third spot in a BCS Bowl? Do the other conference champions go about their business in their slotted BCS games? When would the game be played and how much prep would be given?

And, of course, the biggest question is what requirements would need to be fulfilled to participate?

Those are questions for another day as the seemingly inevitable future draws nearer, right now? Let's have some fun and look back at the trends and winners or losers of this system had it been in place since the 1998 inaugural BCS season.

We're here in the cold, cold winter now folks. The Superbowl is over. No games coming until September. Spring ball hasn't even started yet. Recruiting season is now over after the signing day extravaganza. Sure we've got some Junior Days to look at, sort of, but by and large the football is off the radar until spring ball starts up late February and early March.

While fans complain about the lack of football and how it is gone until spring games at the earliest the players are leading a bit of a different life. Players don't have the luxury of "boring" and players don't have the agony of "nothing to do" in the offseason.

This week has been just absolutely nuts with National Signing Day taking center stage and a veritable three ring circus breaking out around the day many high school kids made their decisions official with their LOIs. Preliminary class rankings have come out, of course we took a stroll into NCAA TCAP scripts with Perverted Justice and if you missed the Butthurt Liveblog here it is folks.

If you're not part of the solution to these asshats then you're part of the problem. All it takes is a simple "dude, that's not cool" to stop most of these people from continuing their reckless patterns. Or at the least they slough it off as a joke and scurry away. That said one Nebraska fan did exchange emails with me to the point where I asked if he was defending his right to talk crap to a high schooler, then he went away.

We've had some explicit content on the site this week and for those of you who took offense I apologize. With all the recruiting wins and losses we drop you this clip which is recruiting in a nutshell, especially when kids flip.


In another vein we've got more Ether for a couple of notable folks who helped make headlines the day after signing day. Bret Bielema and Les Miles, come on down.

The dust has settled on National Signing Day and while there a few kids still left to sign most of the class rankings are being finalized, at least in regards to who signed an LOI with each school. We've got the Scout Rankings, the Rivals Rankings and the ESPN Rankings in the bank right now. As Chris Huston, the Heisman Pundit, points out the rankings today aren't exactly the classes that we'll get by the time these kids enroll in summer and through camp.

that said, what we have is what we have right now. The preliminary evaluations are in and now we get to figure out what it all means. Were you team's needs met? Did you sign a fullboat of kids? How many of these guys will contribute immediately? Where are the developmental projects that can pay off in the future?

There's a lot to assess as the kids come in and first and foremost "needs" must be discussed because ultimately it is a word that gets tossed around a lot but means nothing if it is not used correctly. College football is not the NFL. There are parallels but by and large the differences in roster management are so striking that they make the word "need" mean two very different things.

In the NFL "need" is an immediate thing. Drafting someone to contribute immediately. You're bad at the linebacker spot, so you get a guy or two who you expect to help now. You need a franchise quarterback so you spend big bucks on that guy early in the draft. Linemen needed to shore up that pass protection get picked to play. Sure, there are developmental guys that you gamble on and hope grow into the projected position or players you transition into a new role but that's not what your "needs" are centered on.

Today is the big day folks and that means kids will be picking where they want to spend the next three to five years of their lives. As we've said multiple times here at the site, don't be a jerk. Really, just don't. It isn't funny. You can't pass it off as being a joke once someone says it isn't ok. Really, the only thing that should be done when you don't get a recruit is wish him luck and move on. Period.

Throughout the day I'll be pulling some tweets as we've done with Gunner Kiel, James Summers, Joshua Garnett. I'll also be on the twitter letting people know it isn't ok. If you see it say something. I'm not commanding a protracted fight with some random internet moron, but I am saying let people know you don't agree with them. Ignoring it, as many of us have been doing for years, has not helped. Time for a different, more active approach.

I'll warn you, it gets ugly.

Now that "To Catch A Predator" is tabled by NBC the folks over at Perverted Justice are really pretty free and open to doing some new things. Given the recent rash of overzealous fan behavior we teamed with the fine PJ folks to do a little "To Catch A Predator" of our own. NCAA TCAP folks.

In light of Chris Hansen's recent scandal, I ran the interviews. Here are the transcripts from a couple.

Yesterday we gave some thoughts on Paul Johnson's recruiting policy and why, in a nutshell, we detest it here. Today we tackle another issue that's sort of become vogue to discuss in college football, the early signing period. It is something the American Football Coaches Association is in favor of as well as a move the bulk of FBS and FCS coaches want implemented.

To bring everyone up to speed; most college sports have an early signing period. A period in the fall or spring that is months before the "regular" signing date. Kids can ink their National Letter of Intent on that day and they claim their scholarship, stop the recruiting process and proceed with their final season without the worry of all that comes with picking a school.

Football players, aside from the JUCO ranks, have no such period. Ball players, even those enrolled early for the spring semester, must wait until the first Wednesday in February to sign their name on the line, claim their scholarship and fax their LOIs into the university.

In 2009 the coaches and AFCA backed an "early signing period" for football that would have created a third Wednesday in December early signing date. So far no dice but it is something that folks continue to push as a sort of "fix" for some issues in college football.

My problem with all of this?

Most of the reasoning has little to do with protecting kids. Yes, Andy Staples' point from the previous link is one that I'd absolutely love to see remedied but the bulk of the reasoning is incredibly school or media-sided.

-Stops schools from having to continuously recruit committed kids.
-Stops coaches from being hung out to dry by late signing day switches.
-Dissipates some of the "circus" of signing day.

Much has been made of Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson's unique recruiting philosophy with regards to commitments and official visits. Simply put the man doesn't want his commits to take visits to other schools once they commit to the Yellow Jackets. However, with his policy and the recent push from folks who are in favor of an early signing period all sort of coming into the discussion recently there are a lot of thoughts and opinions and information being discussed. Figured that with signing day coming up and folks still getting butthurt over recruiting decisions it was time for a bit more recruit thoughts from the kid.

First the definitives; I'm not a fan of Paul Johnson's policy.

I am not even remotely a fan of the Paul Johnson method. Not in the slightest. Not a bit. None. I think it is an archaic policy that attempts to wrest power from the student athlete, place it in the hands of the program and force a static value on a fluid situation.

Archaic. Antiquated. Old school. No longer current. Outdated. That's the first thing that comes to mind here. The no playsheet, relay plays in through quarterback and substitutions style is a thing of the past for Paul Johnson and so too is this recruiting hardline. This is about a power play, making your job easier and avoiding as many of the recruiting battles that other schools are engaged in up until and beyond signing day.