Signing Day, When Petophiles Can Walk Among Us

I hate National Signing Day.

Yep, I'm putting it out there. I hate the hats, I hate the hoopla we create around high school kids. Wake me up when they're on campus and in uniform. Now, I get that recruiting is the life blood of college football, but it's not the concept I hate, but it's the animal it's become. ESPN is devoting an entire day of coverage to kids putting hats on and every major Web site has someone breaking it all down.

I equate Signing Day to a kiddie beauty pageant. We all know that someday some of these girls will be strutting their stuff on a Miss USA stage and dating professional athletes. But I don't want to see them in their tween glory. Let me know when they're fully developed physically and when their daddy issues finally take hold.

But while I hate National Signing Day, you seem to devour it. If I wrote the words Seantrel Henderson 500 times, I'd shoot up the Google searches. So because of that, The Señior has to break it all down. So here's three storylines I'm taking for Signing Day.

1. Henderson is USC-bound ... or is he. The nation's No. 2 recruit, according to Rivals.com, committed to the Trojans, vaulting Lane Kiffin's first class at Troy to the front of Rivals' top 25 class rankings. But later Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Henderson wouldn't sign his letter of intent until after USC appeared before an NCAA panel later this month to find out if the team would be penalized. So ... does that mean Henderson is a Trojan? Is he suddenly in play? Funny that the biggest story when Signing Day began was ultimately unresolved when the day was over. All the more reason why the NCAA should abolish this joke and have signing periods instead.

2. Despite Urban Meyer's teetering, Florida still dominates. The controversy swirling around whether Meyer was staying or taking a leave of absence didn't seem to affect the Gators' ability to convince recruits that Gainesville was still the place to be. Florida pulled down 28 commitments, led by the nation's top-ranked player in defensive end Ronald Powell, who was one of four five-star recruits.

3. Give Derek Dooley some love. There really wasn't a worse situation for a coach; come into a program reeling after the sudden/stunning loss of Kiffin to USC and have little to no time before Signing Day. But Dooley brought in the country's ninth-ranked class highlighted by Georgia wide receiver Da'Rick Rogers. But the most impressive thing about this class was that Dooley managed to keep all those kids from Kiffin's class who enrolled early, you know the ones that Ed Orgeron was illegally calling in the wake of Kiffin's departure but played dumb about it? Great sign that the Volunteers made the right move.