National Signing Day 2012 Recap; (Spoiler Alert) Craziness Ensues

Published: 2nd Feb 12 11:33 am
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Ryan Wooden
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National Signing Day is the culmination of the obsessive college football fan’s season. It’s an Internet gathering of sorts that rivals Woodstock for its sheer insanity. Millions of people scour the Internet for previously unseen morsels of information. If college football was a methamphetamine, the people spending 12 hours in front of their Dell would be the toothless, imaginary snake-fighting junkies that make shows like Breaking Bad a smashing success.

Every year the insanity escalates. More people log-on; more cameras focus in; craziness ensues. In Georgia, something as innocent as using a Bulldog puppy as a prop will undoubtedly escalate over the course of the next few years to unleashed, rabies-infested wolverines attacking rival mascots in Michigan. What the hell is a Buckeye anyway?

Inside of five years, I predict we’ll see blowtorches and midgets incorporated into signing ceremonies, at least that’s the direction I would take it. Already in 2012, we saw a recruit select his college destination based partly on his affinity for a certain fast food restaurant. No, seriously.

Auburn signee Cassanova McKinzy (who has this very second inspired me to create an All-Name team for the Class of 2012) selected the Tigers of Auburn over the Tigers of Clemson because Clemson didn’t have a Chik-Fil-A or a suitable replacement within a reasonable distance of their campus. Next year we’ll have someone selecting Arkansas over Alabama because he once saw an Alabama fan teabag an LSU fan in a New Orleans Krystal’s and he hasn’t been able to look at a slider the same way since.

Then, of course, you have the saga of Gunner Kiel, another candidate for the aforementioned All-Name team. Kiel was ranked as the nation’s top pro-style quarterback prospect and at one point was committed to approximately one-third of the country’s 120 FBS teams. Kiel eventually settled on LSU and was scheduled to enroll early and make his way to Baton Rouge in time for the start of the spring semester. He’s now enrolled at Notre Dame.

I’m not sure of the exact circumstances behind Kiel’s change of heart, but for some reason I can’t escape the imagery of Brian Kelly lurking in the shadows of a Columbus, In. kegger celebrating Kiel’s imminent departure. Kiel leaves his cup unattended for mere moments and wakes up on Notre Dame’s campus with xeroxed copies of a class schedule mysteriously shoved into his back pocket, his signature sloppily sitting at the bottom.

That (not so) obviously didn’t happen, but it would be an awesome story if Kiel returns Notre Dame to glory. The actual details are probably distinctly weirder, and this was just a pre-cursor to the circus of National Signing Day.

Apparently on National Signing Day, April Justin, who is not a candidate for the All-Name team based on her decision to marry a man with a first name as a last name, had finally found piece with her son, Landon Collins’, decision to play for the Crimson Tide. It was an anti-climactic end to one of the more disturbingly hilarious story-lines of the year.

A couple of years prior, Cam Newton’s father auctioned his services to the highest bidder, but that was a labor of love. At this year’s Under-Armour All-American Game, Justin publicly declared outrage on Landon’s decision to select Alabama over in-state favorite LSU. NOT really feeling that love.

Then, in a series of national media interviews, April Justin continued to stonewall any human emotions like remorse. Dr. Phil must have intervened, because eventually the lady with two first names relented (but not before accusing Nick Saban of an NCAA violation and also backhandedly accusing him of being a racist.)

In ten years we’ll look at stories like these and laugh at their mundane nature. NCAA rules will mutate further and further into ridiculousness, and by 2020 we’ll have high school football players fighting to the death in coliseums, with the ultimate prize being a chance to serve under Darth Saban (of course there won’t be lightsabers….. this is real life people.)

The ones who survive but aren’t deemed worthy will be given the choice of dying by their own sword or playing for Rutgers. Most will do the honorable thing and choose death.

This is the path that National Signing Day is leading us down, my friends. And I, for one, can’t wait, because if college football was a methamphetamine, I’d be completely and hopelessly hooked.

(Disclaimer: College football hasn’t been proven to have the same kind of destructive quality as any amphetamines, unless, of course, you live in the State of Alabama, where college football apparently fuels people’s desires to poison trees and place their testicles on your face. Meth is REALLY bad from what I understand, and I’d strongly encourage you not to do it.)

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