I was watching RSW and spoke with my friend Mike Rizzo afterwards and he relayed this little recruiting tidbit to me. In case you do not know, Terrelle Pryor is a 6 foot 6 inch, QB from Jeannette High School, only a few miles from my house. Rivals.com already has Pryor ranked as the #1 recruit in the Nation for this upcoming season. He has stated that he wants to play both football (QB) and basketball in college. The head football coach of Notre Dame paid Terrelle a visit and it didn’t go as well as expected for the Irish.

“Hi, I’m Charlie Wies head Football Coach from the University of Notre Dame, and I’m here to recruit you as a Wide Receiver.”

For most that have been following his recruitment, we know that he wants to play quarterback and only quarterback. Well once he heard that Weis was there to recruit him for another position he cut the chat short and headed back to class. It appears that the luster of suiting up for Notre Dame was not enough for Pryor.

Everyone’s favorite former Razorback quarterback has finally made a decision on a school after his failed overthrow of the Houston Nutt regime last year. The LA Times is reporting that the Mustain Train will come to a complete stop in Southern California. Pete Carroll has done another outstanding job convincing another Blue Chip athlete that he has room and playing time for him with the Trojans. I wonder if he told him he could be the next Matt Leinart?

Now Mitch’s Mom Mitch will be able to garner other 5 star recruits who are not seeing playing time with the Trojans and complain to Carroll about it. At Arkansas he did not have the weight of all the “stars” to convince the adminstration that they should choose him over Nutt, but USC is full of them on their roster. Either way, Mustain will have to sit out the 2007 season and will most likely battle Mark Sanchez and Aaron Corp or a plethra of other star QB’s that will commit to USC this fall for playing time.

In this age of fast paced recruiting, a coach will find anyway to drop a line to a recruit, whether it be a hand written letter or a text message to ask how the he is doing today. Text messaging is a quick way to say hi, keep their school fresh in the recruits mind, and at the same time skirt the NCAA’s limitations on contact with recruits. Well an NCAA committee (I believe the one that suggested the change and then rechange of the clock rule) has come to a conclusion that it is a good idea to ban the use of text messaging for recruiting purposes. This is not an official rule yet, but it is on its way to being one.

This week, the organization’s Division I Management Council approved the proposal, submitted by members of the Ivy league, and forwarded it to the Division I Board of Directors for consideration at their April 26 meeting in Indianapolis.

This will come to a shock to some coaches like Pete Carroll, who on signing day tried to persuade Marvin Austin to USC by telling him Joe McKnight was in going to spurn LSU for the Trojans. But to old timers like Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno, this will have no impact because as JoePa once said; he doesn’t even know how to download a jar of peanut butter.

My question is this to the NCAA: How can an organization who has problems enforcing boosters giving benefits to players illegally expect to police something like this text message ban? Will they ask each coach, assistant coach, and recruiting coordinator to turn in their cell phone bills each month. Then proceed to check ever number that was text messaged during that month. This seems like beating your head against a brick wall. I hope that the NCAA thinks this ban and how to enforce it through before making it a rule, or a year later we will hear about them reversing this rule just like the ever so dreaded clock changes.

Many Penn State fans remember that picture with pure joy while Maryland fans saw it as a classless act by a high school kid who 20 months earlier made a verbal commitment to their Terps. Now we are a little over a year from that day and Antonio Logan El might be going back to Maryland, with his tail between his legs.

Logan El’s first year at Penn State was filled with as much drama as a week’s worth of Days Of Our Lives. He came into camp and the rumors started to circulate that he wasn’t in shape, but many within the team said it was just a problem with his asthma medication. At the end of the season he took a leave of absence from the team to be with an ailing relative. It is nice to see a kid put his family first, and realize that the college football world will still be here when life settles down. Logan El came back to the team around the time frame where Penn State started spring ball, but before he could rejoin the team Coach Paterno wanted Logan El to work out a bit on his own with the strength trainer before starting practice with the team. That makes sense doesn’t it?

Most would think yes, but not Antonio. He was mad that he was asked to do this work and that became the straw that broke the camel’s back in his opinion. Next thing Nittany Lion fans knew is that Paterno was saying in so many words that Logan El’s days as a Nittany Lion were over. So how does this happen? How does someone with such promise just lose the drive to play football?

In my opinion, recruiting Offensive Lineman is the hardest position to project for the collegian level. A high school lineman can look dominate just because he has matured faster and is just plain bigger than his competition. That allows the lineman to push his opponents around, but when he gets to a level where his competition is the same size as he is, that is when you find out what the lineman is really about.

For Logan El, he just didn’t have the drive to take his athletic size and ability to the next level. There is nothing wrong with that, some people are not cut out for college football. It is not easy to play football and carry a full load of classes, but to do it with the lack of respect that he did, is not something he should be proud of. People do make mistakes, but I think the biggest mistake would be if Ralph Friedgen allowed Logan El to play on his team. So Fridge, listen to Mike Farrell and myself and cut your losses. Let Logan El find another team to latch onto.

Last week, we told you a little bit about North Fort Myers (FL) running back Noel Devine, who signed a letter of intent to join the West Virginia Mountaineers for the 2007 season. While there are still many questions as to the status of his academic eligibility, what is certain is that the kid is a world class runner. This highlight reel looks like it was taken from a video game commercial, but Noel Devine is for real.

Noel Devine is highly regarded as one of the top, if not the top running back recruit for the 2007 class. If you recall back in February, the day before signing day Noel Devine shocked some in the recruiting world saying he would attend West Virginia University. He picked WVU over Florida State, but even then most thought that Devine would need a year a prep school before actually enrolling. Well National LOI day came and we waited for Devine to sign his LOI…and waited…and waited…

Then came a statement by Noel Devine’s agent guidance counselor “Neon” Deion Sanders that he talked to Devine and after a long converstaion with the former FSU star, Devine decided to wait and think about his decision. Most thought with that news Devine was eventually headed to Tallahassee to play for Bobby Bowden.

Over a month and a half has passed since Signing Day and Noel Devine has finally signed his LOI…for West Virginia. His academic eligiblity for this fall is still under question but Devine has been working hard and is awaiting a new set of test scores. But for now Mountaineer fans can claim a big victory over their former coach Bobby Bowden.

I would like to give a special thanks to both Josh Centor of the DoubleAZone and the President of the NCAA Dr. Myles Brand for taking the time out to answer a few questions I had about recruiting. To listen to my questions and their responses check out this thread.

One of the questions I ask Dr. Brand is if the NCAA has thought of instituting a early signing period. Also I ask Dr. Brand to explain the process the NCAA goes through when hearing word about a possible recruiting violation.

It is always hard to compare high school athletes to those in the NFL and even in college, but it is fun to speculate who they might emulate the most. Thanks to my good friend Mike Rizzo, he found this little highlight video of a player being touted as the next Vince Young. The awards are already piling up for this young superstar. Terrelle Pryor has offers from over 30 schools already. Most of them are looking at him at both football and basketball.

He has the makeup of a great dual threat quarterback with his 6 foot 6 inch and 210 pound frame. In his junior season for Jeannette High School in Pennsylvania he completed 92 of 163 passes for 1,732 yards and rushed for 1,676 yards on 197 attempts. He threw for 15 touchdowns, ran for 13, and caught 1 touchdown. Rivals.com tabbed him as the junior of the year. Let me tell you that this guy is worth every bit of hype he is getting. I have personally seen him play twice, once on field level and watched him numerous other times on television. So check him out in the video below.

I am not a fan of the rule that recruits cannot talk to alumni, but the NCAA has made it a rule so it should be followed. In today’s edition of our weekly You Tubesday we look at what Joe McKnight said at his announcement that have sparked all these claims of recruiting violations against USC. If there was a violation will the NCAA step up and deal out the appropriate penalty? I doubt it.

A day after National Signing Day the dust has settled, but that doesn’t mean life has come to a screeching halt for recruiting gurus. That job is a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year job. You are constantly watching film, calling prospects, and calling high school coaches hoping to get the latest scoop. But do you ever wonder exactly how these people get jobs at Scout.com or Rivals.com?

The Washington Post did a piece recently on Bob Lichtenfels. For those who don’t know Bob is a evaluator for Scout.com, mainly for players in the Northeast. Bob isn’t a former coach but he is a guy who gained credibility on a message board. Bob would routinely post detailed analyses of players on the Scout.com message boards and it ended up getting him a job with the company. You see everyone; there is still hope for us after all.

The next point this article brings up is how much power these guys have over 17 and 18 year olds. Kids come up to Lichtenfels and practically beg to be 4 or 5 stars. They understand that schools read these sites for update, and every extra star helps. It’s no wonder there are kids that fall through the cracks because how can you possibly evaluate every single player out there and even if you do how do you know he would fit in to a particular school’s system? Lichtenfels seems to do his evaluating in the first few moments of meeting the recruit.

That’s why I love recruiting so much because of the pure crapshoot it can be at times and how everyone seems to be in the know. It is funny to read message boards which have posters that have “inside info” and claimed to talk to ’s neighbor and he said that he will commit to . People eat this stuff up; there is no wonder that Rivals.com and Scout.com are making money hand over fist with their service. They sell their premium articles but they also sell a “premium” forum to discuss it.

You have fans that are 20 to 70 years old fawning over 17 and 18 year olds. Hanging on their every word, even dissecting what the kid wears to an announcement to get a jump on what school they might choose. In the outside world you’d get thrown in jail for this, but this is how the recruiting world operates.

Now we can get to my biggest pet peeve of the recruiting process, the aftermath. In the months, weeks, and seconds before a big time recruit announces his intentions message boards are full of praise and optimism for the recruit. Some posters go as far as writing an “Open Letter” and posting it on the message board hoping that the recruit might read it and it will some how change his mind to come to that school. Then after the recruit says he isn’t going to that particular school, that same guy who posted all the praise will have a new post saying how that recruit “wasn’t material. We never really wanted him anyway.” And don’t give me that garbage about how your school’s fans are too classy to do that stuff. This happens at all the fan bases.

So sit back and take a deep breath. Life will go on for you even though the In The Bleachers 5-star running back recruit didn’t choose your school. See, I am a recruiting guru.