The Day After...

Back in the day, it was actually hard to follow college football (and basketball) recruiting. You had about five subscription newsletters from which to pick. The first one we got was Max Emfinger's. He was in Texas back then, and since most Sooners hailed from Texas, we figured he was the guy to follow. As far as signing day, well, SportsCenter would spend maybe two minutes toward the end of the show talking about where the top players had signed.

After that, we had to wait until the following day when USA Today came out. The sports section always devoted multiple pages to signing day coverage. The centerfold was a team-by-team list of signed players from all the D-One conferences. To us, The Day After was pure joy. All seven four years of college, we treated the day like a damn holiday. We would get up early, shower and hop in the station wagon and drive to 7-11 and buy two copies of USA Today. Then we headed over to McDonald's for a huge breakfast. We would sit way in the back and spread out the centerfold and devour the list of Oklahoma signees. We didn't move from the table for well over 90 minutes. When we were done, we drove back to the dorm or apartment and dragged out the newsletters to research the players that had signed. Actually going on campus to attend classes that day was never an option. When the day wound down, there was a feeling of contentment. OU had re-stocked the kitchen with fresh groceries. (And, yes, we returned to classes the next day. But we brought with us a list of next year's top high school players.)

Now you can get more info on players than you could possibly ever want -- and you can get it in seconds. But deep down inside, a part of us misses the days of devoting an entire day to the newspaper to get the latest scoop on recruiting.