By William Bowman
When word came out Monday that Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV (that's 10 plus 50 plus 1 plus 5 somehow equals 44) was the most watched television show ever, I admit there were some internal struggles.
While I feel that Super Bowl Sunday should be a national holiday -- or at least the day after for the more celebratory fans -- I was surprised more people watched the Saints' thrilling win over the Colts than the final episode of "M-A-S-H" or the even season finale of "Jersey Shore."
Maybe I just don't get "the Situation."
See, I don't love the NFL. I like it a lot, but I won't sit in front of the television from the time the pregame shows start on Sunday morning until the late game ends and watch games non-stop. I don't check my fantasy team 27 times during the week.
Now give me a full Saturday of college football and I am locked in from noon to 2 a.m. (thank goodness for the late game on Fox Sports). I will sit and watch three or four college games at the same time on a Saturday and do it at every time slot.
But the NFL just doesn't do it for me. Nearly every game looks the same. You never see one team running the spread option against another running the triple option like you do on Saturdays.
So that's what made me feel a little guilty when I heard more than 100 million people watched the Super Bowl -- although the number may be somewhat skewered if, as was the case in my house, a group of females surrounded one television but never really watched a single snap. I was as excited about what happened on Wednesday as I was for what was happening on Sunday.
For the uninitiated, Wednesday was the first day high school seniors could sign their letters of intent to play football at institutions around the nation. To college football junkies it is one of the 15 best days of the football season, ranking behind the dozen or so Saturdays in the fall, New Year's Day and the day your alma mater/favorite team/crashed-there-once-after-a-night-out-with-a-high-school-friend plays its spring game.
I love signing day, as much for the train wreck that it is as for what it brings.
I don't know if there is anything more unbearable than a high school kid, told since he's been 7 that he's going to make the "League," surrounded by his posse as he pulls on a Nike cap and swears his allegiance to Florida or Penn State or Miami or USC. Seriously, it's a high school kid.
But I watch. Because I care. And I watch the recruiting rankings scroll along the bottom of the screen and think about the hope that it offers fans who think because their school just landed a top-five class that they are going to be top-five program.
While recruiting is the life-blood of college athletics, recruiting rankings, unfortunately, are like forecasting the weather.
Granted, there are some kids that just jump right out at you, but sometimes the gurus completely fan because as much film as you watch on someone, you just can't tell if someone is as good at 18 as they are ever going to get.
I wanted to see for myself so I checked back over the past decade or so.
Because I don't want people to call me a homer, I will start in 2005 when Derrick Williams was the No. 1 ranked player in the country coming out of high school. Williams went on to have a good career at Penn State, grabbing All-American honors as a senior, but that came as a kick returner, and while he was certainly valuable, you expect more out of the No. 1 player. Also ranked in the top 10 that year were Rey Maualuga and Mark Sanchez, who both signed at USC and started as rookies in the NFL while Williams caught six passes for the Detroit Lions this season.
Others ranked that year included DeSean Jackson (no. 18, a Pro Bowler with the Eagles), Darren McFadden (No. 21, two-time Heisman runner-up), Michael Oher (No. 48, movie star, No. 1 draft pick) and Ndamukong Suh (No. 51, likely top pick this April).
That's the thing, you just never know with kids that age. For every Vince Young (No. 1 in 2002) and Adrian Peterson (No. 1 in 2004), there is a Mark Ingram (2009 Heisman winner for Alabama who was ranked 189th nationally) and Paul Posluszny (not even ranked nationally, All-American at Penn State).
It all leads me back to my feelings on Monday. Should I feel guilty that I care as much about signing day as the Super Bowl? Probably. Thing is, the Peyton Manning's and Drew Brees' of the world come from some tiny school and I want to be find out about them before everybody else does.
n Sports editor Bill Bowman covers college sports for The Daily Item. E-mail comments to sports@dailyitem.com
