My friends say I'm exhibiting signs of addiction.

Every year I fall prey to the exploitationist media hype machine dubbed, rather largely, National Signing Day. What is it about the deprivation of the Off Season that drives any worth-his-salt College Football fan to click obsessively to the remotest corners of the internet for information on high school boys like the dope-fiend monkey feverishly ignoring his food and water buttons just for another sweet taste of heroin?

Or does anyone else feel that way?

Only to have the actual day be a soggy, deflating let down. Cause let's face it September's still 7 months away. By that time I will have forgotten half the names I've researched tirelessly when they're redshirted, slogging it out on special teams or mired in the 4th position (aka beartrap slot) on the depth chart. Some of them will transfer, some will quit the team, some will flunk the 12th grade and fade into oblivion. And then it's the two-star guy Tom "Creepy Coif Stupid Brain" Lemming blacklisted from Notre Dame that ends up being a star when I never remembered signing him at all.

The schlockmeisters at Rivals and Scout love this time of year, when their membership fees (like, paying to read gossip and hearsay) actually starts to look reasonable. They're no better than the drug pushers on Hippie Hill with their shaky, home-video highlight reels and intern-written "in-depth analysis."

Now that I've been seduced and burned again, you know what I'm saying, fuck that shit.

I know I'm not going to contribute anything to the recruiting discourse that hasn't already been said. (Like, it doesn't mean anything to rank recruiting classes.) But I just had to get that off my chest.