The Morning According to Us

Signing day has suspense? Not really. It's a formality for the elite.

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Matt Barkley is headed to USC. He committed nearly two years ago.

If you know anything about college football's Signing Day, which takes place today—millionaire college coaches sweating over fax machines like millionaire hedge fund managers perspiring through market fatigue—you know the suspense is all a little contrived. USC, Ohio State, LSU, Texas and Florida and the rest of the college football oligarchy have long since secured enough talent to make the future one part big game, three parts formality.

The top ten in recruiting rankings look roughly the same, year to year, just like the actual final rankings. That's partly because it's a lot easier to project college talent, and because the financial playing field in college football makes Major League Baseball's inequities look like sporting socialism.

Like election day in congress, today offers a couple surprises and maybe some weird changes of heart, but it's mostly just gerrymandered to perfection. It's perhaps the best day each year for Nick Saban and Pete Carroll to justify NFL ineptitude for the college paycheck—why turn over every stone at the NFL combine for one star when college football grants you the chance to harvest dozens?

This off-season, Tennessee and new head coach Lane Kiffin spent far more than the budgets of some whole programs just to recruit. Kiffin secured guys like Ed Orgeron , who once was sent into the battle for high school talent by Carroll before he tried and failed at his own head coaching gig at Ole Miss. Orgeron makes near $700,000 just to mainly recruit, which should come out to about a dollar per text message and personal note sent this year. Paying a pure recruiter what some BCS head coaches make? It sounds like the Yankees, or it would, if it wasn't so much more extreme. But remember: it's not the Vols' fault. They might as well spend the money. ESPN will be paying the SEC $2.25 billion soon for TV rights. Combining that with Verne Lundquist money, and each school in the conference will snag $17 million per year…before they ever sell a ticket, and for years to come. (And most sell some tickets.)

Consider that a non-BCS stud like TCU had revenue totals of $13.3 million—total!—last year, by comparison, even a perennially weak SEC program like Kentucky or Vandy can pay a guy like Orgeron a half million bucks to be a high school hall monitor.

And we can harp on the stunning inequities—think if the AL East teams each took in more money before selling a single ticket than the AL Central teams would make over a 10-year period—but that doesn't mean you'd hate a kid for picking the BoSox. Where would you rather go? A school like Bowling Green might spend $5 million on football for an entire season, from chin straps to coaching salaries. Alabama might spend that just on a tutoring center for athletes.

Ultimately, what Signing Day means is that a lot of kids get to choose what's best for them, which is a blessing to them and their families. Even if they're worth millions more than a school will ever provide, they're still getting something. For their commitment to football they get the college experience, a chance to dodge the bullets of injury for a once-in-a-million shot at the NFL, the tutors, the travel, the social benefits. They could even get a degree—some will, many won't—and connections that open up so many possibilities.

That's good for the kids.

For college football, the competitiveness implied by signing day is closer to pure farce. The process has long since become another important day in a professional sports environment. But that's the system, folks. It's the golden rule: those with the gold make the rules.

Can ya' blame 'em?

Elsewhere…

In London, the people who build the Olympic grounds are forbidden from publicly discussing it.

Twenty-four hours on a treadmill for your birthday?

Don't attack the moonlighting ref who also happens to be a trooper.

Crusaders become Panthers so they don't offend Muslims and Jews.

It's the ol' race up the Empire State Building.

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