The most over-hyped time of the year

So you thought Super Bowl Sunday was the most over-hyped sports day of the year?
Boy, were you wrong.
At least, there’s something tangible to look forward to on Super Bowl Sunday. At the end of the day, someone holds up a trophy.
Today is college football national signing day and by the time it ends, we really won’t know anything more than we knew yesterday or last week or last month or last year.
We know our favorite college football teams picked up a new class of recruits. And sure, some self-ordained “experts” will rank each class, babble on about teams “filling needs” and gush over 17- and 18-year-olds’ football prowess.
And fans eat this stuff up. They love it. If you don’t believe it, just visit a fan message board, especially once the actual season ends – just pick a team, it doesn’t much matter – and read about recruiting.
You will be quickly introduced to the “star ratings” system, which ostensibly tells you how good each recruit is. A five-star rating is the best. Me, I’m about a three-star blogger, but I’m working really hard on my typing skills.
You will also read various conspiracy theories, about how one school undermined another school to get this one recruit, or about how this coach lied to a recruit about that coach to gain an advantage.
Avid followers of college football have always been interested in how a recruiting class shapes up. But this really took off in the last decade or so, with the increased presence of the Internet and Web sites like rivals.com and scout.com to fuel fans’ burning desire to know that an offensive lineman can run a 5.7-second 40.
It’s OK. People like what they like. And really, it is a big day for the recruits and their families. But the whole point is that it’s like former NFL coach Jim Mora said: “You don’t know. You just don’t know. You may think you know, but you don’t know. And you never will.”
Mora wasn’t talking about recruiting when he said that, but he might as well have been. Today’s five-star athletes might end up being two-star performers three years down the road, and vice versa.
The interest in recruiting is understandable, since it’s the life blood of every program. Just try not to get too worked up if somebody says your favorite team landed its best recruiting class in 20 years or if they say your team missed the boat this time around.
Two or three years from now, you might be able to look back and say they were just dead wrong.

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