COMMENTARY

By Tom Dienhart

updated 4:18 a.m. ET Jan. 29, 2006

I'm as big a sucker as any of you when it comes to recruiting. I love the excitement and anticipation that surrounds the arrival of new talent.

Who's gonna be the next star?

But then logic takes over. Deep down, I know most of these ballyhooed recruits won't amount to a hill of beans, so why get excited?

Go back and look at past rankings. I recently checked out Rivals.com's Top 100 recruits of 2002. For every Vince Young and Haloti Ngata, there's a Justin Zwick and Nathan Rhodes.

Injuries, homesickness, academics, immaturity ... any number of factors contribute to a recruit not panning out. There are myriad variables that will dictate whether a kid succeeds in college that go way beyond high school highlights and combine workouts, but that's what most of these rankings are based on.

And then there's the matter of ranking recruiting classes. True, teams that annually rank among every recruiting service's Top 10 typically are the ones playing in BCS bowls -- but not often enough for me to believe these recruiting rankings mean much.

I love pointing out that Northwestern has won more Big Ten titles (3) than Penn State (2) since the Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten. How many times has Northwestern finished ahead of Penn State in the recruiting rankings? I think you know the answer to that.

Signing Day Florida, USC lead way; Texas, ND also shine Signings by school | Top players | Top classes Ventre: With stars gone, Trojans reload Johnston: Meyer, Gators win in living rooms Expert: ND's recruiting on rise | ND Central Texas signee to get early jump on QB battle TSN: Rankings mean little | Vote: A big deal? TSN: Toughest places to sell to recruits Mustain faces high expectations at Arkansas

There are other examples that lead me to doubt these rankings. Florida's recruiting classes have been ranked in each of the last four Rivals.com's Top 20s. Alas, the Gators haven't won the SEC since 2000. Texas A&M has had Top 25 classes three of the last four seasons. What has it wrought? Nada. Virginia and Cal also have been regulars in Rivals.com's Top 20 the past four seasons. Their BCS bowl totals? Zero.

I know. If you look hard enough at anything, you can find flaws. Still ...

This business of ranking recruiting classes and recruits seems even more absurd when you consider the struggles NFL teams endure evaluating talent. NFL teams have staffs of personnel men and scouts who spend hours analyzing players. On top of that, NFL teams spend more money evaluating talent than colleges. And NFL teams have a smaller pool of players to scrutinize.

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And they often still screw it up. Go back and look at your favorite NFL's team's recent drafts. The number of busts will amaze you. If NFL teams often screw up with all of those resources, how can we believe what a recruiting service says?

Knowing all of this, I still regard the recruiting rankings that come out every February as gospel. Hey, the rankings fill an information void. And I know how much nature abhors a void. It's crazy -- and I still love it.

In fact, I find myself laughing when TCU beats Oklahoma, Washington State wins the Pac-10, Kansas State becomes a national power, the best quarterback of our generation hails from Southern Mississippi and the first pick in the NFL draft comes from Utah.

Anyway ... enjoy Signing Day. I know I will. I'm sure your school will fill every need. It does every year, right?

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