On sign-day, Ohio State is relieved to have their top player, while Georgia has a top class following a 5-star flip.
With some five-star drama, college football’s early signing period got underway on Wednesday.
By luring an elite player from within the state to Georgia rather than Florida State, Georgia most certainly secured the top recruiting class. Ohio State coach Ryan Day was really relieved to see the recruit regarded as the nation’s top prospect, but he was still holding out for an official announcement. Amidst a rush of late de-commits, Florida was able to hang onto a couple of five-star players.
Dylan Raiola, a highly anticipated quarterback, signed a national letter of intent with Nebraska, the university where his father was an All-American offensive lineman, signaling the end of his tortuous recruitment process.
The signing period for college football was once the early signing period, but it was moved to December to accommodate postseason games and player transfers.
“The timetable is not ideal. Penn State coach James Franklin told reporters, “It’s chaotic.”
On the first day of the three-day early signing period, the major colleges sign the majority of their recruiting classes. The customary February signing period is now primarily for schools wanting to make last touches or those who are falling behind, possibly as a result of a coaching change.
By the end of the week, nearly every top prospect will have committed to a school for months; among them is Florida receiver Jeremiah Smith, who is regarded as the class’s top prospect. Despite Smith’s long-standing commitment to Ohio State, in-state programs continued to be interested in him.
Smith didn’t exclude any possibility that he may transfer to a university nearer to home, like Miami, until he put on an Ohio State cap during a signing day event at his high school.
Smith declared, “I’m going to THE Ohio State University with my talents.”
At the moment, Day was holding his signing day press conference. The coach posed as though his knees were buckling and questioned, “Really?” before taking a deep breath when he was informed that Smith had remained loyal to the Buckeyes.
Georgia and Alabama were competing with the Buckeyes for the top overall recruiting class
“It will come down to the wire when you have really good players, and today is signing day.” That is the process, Day explained.
It turned out that Day was correct to be wary of discussing Smith until his signed NLI was formally in his possession. A few hours later, Ohio State still hadn’t declared Smith formally a member of the signing class.It’s possible that Georgia eliminated Florida State from contention for the top spot. A defensive back from Buford High School, which is close to Atlanta, named KJ Bolden verbally committed to the Seminoles in August but ultimately chose to stay home and play for the Bulldogs.As per the composite rankings of 247 Sports, which offer an aggregate assessment of the primary web recruiting rankings, Kirby Smart, the coach at Georgia, will have the top class for the third time since 2018. For the Bulldogs, who lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game and were denied a chance at a third consecutive national championship, it was some good news.
With the signing of defensive lineman Armondo Blount to Miami, Florida State lost another five-star prospect. Blount had committed to Miami at first, then changed his mind and committed to FSU on signing day.
Competing Florida was also attempting to assemble a potential top-five class, but coach Billy Napier was unable to hold the bunch together after a 5-7 year.
Earlier this week, the Gators lost four-star defensive lineman Adarius Hayes (to Miami) and Amaris Williams (to Auburn), as well as four-star wide Izaiah Williams (to Texas A&M). Additionally, five-star cornerback Xavier Filsaime from Texas switched to the Longhorns.
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