Another Signing Day Has Come and Gone
by Jim Alderson, 2/3/05

The Silly Season of college football is completed for another year. Coaches praise their classes, recruiting junkies weauxf about the perceived high quality of their school’s class or despair about the lack thereof, and those who provide so-called insider information on the destinations of who they determine to be the top prospects quickly move on to rating the next class in the hopes that people will continue shelling out bucks to access it. And, best of all, in these days of instant information, people will only have to wait a mere 2-3 years to find out exactly how good was their school’s recruiting class.

By the accounts of pretty much everybody, Virginia Tech had a pretty good class. Certainly Frank Beamer said so in public. Of course, Frank’s description of his recruiting classes never varies a word from how he describes each and every new crop of Tech football freshmen. Whether he and his staff have brought in a large number of players with a large number of stars affixed to their names by the recruiting services, or a bunch of guys who would be better suited manning the Hokie Club parking lots on game day -- and he has brought in classes of both -- Frank always praises them as a fine group who will make wonderful additions to the Tech football program.

Frank is certainly not alone in his positive descriptions of a new recruiting class. All other coaches do it, too. A coach might remark to his staff in private, “Boy, we’re in big trouble now” and immediately contact friends at other schools encouraging them to keep him in mind in the event of staff openings, or begin to think about entry-level positions in the rent-to-own industry, but he never says so in any media. I have never once heard or read of a coach saying of his new recruits, “This is the worst bunch of stiffs ever accumulated in the history of football.”

I certainly do not recall Paul Pasqualoni four years ago describing his Syracuse class as “This is the group that will get me fired.” Very rare is the coach with the honesty of an East Carolina assistant who on a radio program defended his lightly regarded class by exclaiming, “We have to wait until the big boys make their choices.” I’m sure that went over well with the Pirate faithful.

Coaches generally are very positive concerning their new incoming players. Even if their guys are recruiting service bottom-feeders rejected by all self-respecting programs, a coach will attempt to put a positive spin on the group. They have correct posture, good manners or something. Former Tech basketball coach Frankie Allen once described a recruiting class he brought in that had height but little else to recommend them basketball-wise as a group that “would look good walking through airports.” Coaches will find something because, after all, it’s February, at least seven months before these clowns could possibly contribute to another loss, and years before they could be exposed as the non-talented bunch of duds the coach knows then to be. These classes tend to be recruited by coaches who move around a lot.

Tech’s class was not judged to be one of them, however. The staff appear to have done an excellent job, particularly inside the state. Few are the names at the top of anybody’s state rankings of prospects that are heading anywhere but Blacksburg. This was as close to dominating in-state recruiting as is likely to be done. These are names we hopefully will be hearing a lot in Lane Stadium over the next few years. It would also seem from their profiles that special emphasis was placed this year on recruiting solid citizens of high character in the hope that the names will indeed be called more by the Lane Stadium public address announcer than a Montgomery County court clerk. Good kids can make mistakes and coaches are not nannies and cannot police their brood at all times, but it looks like the staff is attempting to address what has been a negative and embarrassing aspect of this otherwise successful program.

There were also some successful recruiting raids made to other states. Tech’s ACC membership and immediate football championship are paying some quick dividends. There was also unfortunately what has become an annual event in recent years, the recruit thought to be in the fold who got away. The Signing Day decommitment is a phenomenon that happens to an increasing number of schools. I find it hard to blame the player in question. High school seniors are notorious for changing their minds, and under NCAA regulations they have every right to do so until a school through the snail mail receives a declaration by the player. I have a much lower regard for the coaches who ignore a previous commitment by a player to a school and continue to actively recruit the kid. The frequency of the occurrence seems to be determined by one’s proximity to SEC schools, where the players who provide the Signing Day surprises always seem to end up, at least for Tech.

The SEC leads the nation in NCAA probations and all too often their football coaches are all too willing to demonstrate why. This group of scoundrels who generally give the impression that they possess all of the honor and integrity of Chechnya crime bosses are in the forefront of the attempts to make the word of young men unreliable. Continuing to recruit kids who have given verbal commitments to other schools is not prohibited by NCAA rules, but it would seem to demonstrate some questionable ethics. Were I the parent of a top high school player I would certainly take a dim view of a coach who showed up on my doorstep and the first words out of his mouth were, “Hello. I’m here to convince your son to go back on his word.” I would think discussions of that particular school’s integrity would pretty much go downhill from there.

The very nature of recruiting makes it an unsavory business. It continues to amaze me that people will choose as a profession one where continued employment prospects are contingent upon begging high school kids to join your enterprise. These coaches seem to be making it sleazier. I imagine it is a small step for guys who have perfected the art of lying to a seventeen year-old with a straight face. Some coaches are often something other than truthful with prospects and will tell them exactly what they want to hear, whether it be about their chances for immediate playing time, or that they are the only ones being recruited for a particular position and will have it for themselves, when in fact the coach is bringing in half a dozen others for the same spot on the depth chart. I guess it is a short step from outright lying to a kid to encouraging him to go back on his word.

These coaches will defend their shady behavior by explaining that they have to. Perhaps they are right. It is a telling statement about the state of today’s college football landscape when a coach such as the afore-mentioned Paul Pasqualoni, a fine coach, as proven by Tech’s many exits from the Carrier Dome with less than optimum results, a coach who graduated his players and never had a whiff of scandal attached to his program, and an equally fine man who was involved in much charitable work in the city of Syracuse, can be fired, not for losing but for not winning enough. Equally telling is that a mere six weeks after PaulP’s Syracuse tenure bit the dust, Tennessee, a place where the number of football recruits visiting each year only slightly exceeds the number of NCAA investigators and where a player receiving his degree for course work he completed himself roughly coincides with appearances by Hailey’s Comet, rewarded its coach Phil Fulmer, a man who skipped the SEC’s Birmingham media day last year due to the threat of being served with a subpoena, with a lavish new contract. Fulmer's new papers were awarded, it would seem, not so much for the BCS bowls that the Vols have found hard to obtain in recent years, but for managing to dodge NCAA probation. This is what coaches are dealing with and in many cases, the lessons of Pasqualoni and Fulmer will cause them to engage in most any kind of behavior that they think might assist them in hanging onto their job.

Soap box ranting aside, it is much better to welcome those who will be coming to Virginia Tech than to continue to lament those that will not. Frank Beamer and his staff have signed what looks to be a good group of players. The excitement around recruiting and most anything else connected with Tech football these days and years continues to grow. This is a winning program, and the recruiting results would seem to indicate that the success will continue. While the fixation on football recruiting can seem a little silly at times, it is a byproduct of Tech’s success.

The recruiting updates, signing boards, message boards and various news stories are, all in all, good because it indicates people are interested in a very good program. This is far better than what happened at, say, Baylor, where their lead story in the Waco newspaper Thursday morning was about soccer recruiting, perhaps indicating that the Bears didn’t beat out Texas and Oklahoma for too many prospects. I much prefer things the way they are at Tech. Welcome to all of the new players. Tech fans look forward to seeing you on the field.

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