You might not believe this, but there’s a group of people who debate Syracuse’s admissions department. Seriously, they go to an online message board and talk about who’s coming to SU next year and who isn’t.

The applicants they discuss are as tall as 6-foot-5, as big as 290 pounds and can sometimes run 40 yards in less than 4.5 seconds. But still, they’re 18-year-olds and have had as much success playing college football as the applicant who’s the drummer in the marching band or the student body president.

Wednesday was National Letter of Intent Signing Day, when high school football players – many who made their college decisions months ago – sign their name on a letter of intent to play college football. Once the recruit signs, he’s contractually obliged to remain at that school. Syracuse signed 26 players on Wednesday.

It ends months of speculation and anticipation – mainly on online message boards – of analyzing and dissecting these recruits’ moves. The currency used to quantify a player’s worth is a star system – much like a restaurant or a hotel – where a five-star player is tough to find and one-star players are readily available.

They’re rated by Web sites like Scout.com and Rivals.com, which also host these message boards. It allows fans to stay up to date on a bunch of players they’ve likely never seen and get frustrated at their school for losing out on those players.

That’s the inherent irony in the message boarders and the overall excitement generated by Signing Day. It’s become a college football holiday, with cable television coverage similar to Election Day and online reports of announcements similar to stock market updates. Fans go into a frenzy, becoming the college version of the NFL Draft. But we really don’t know much about these players, and what we do know comes from second-hand assessment at a level where they’re physically superior, which they’ll unlikely be in the first year or two of college football.

Yet fans still judge and debate with absolutely no tangible basis.

Case-in-point: Syracuse emphasized tight ends in this year’s recruiting class. It apparently targeted Rob Gronkowski from Woodland Hills, Pa. (and originally from Williamsville, N.Y.), Lansford Watson from Brooklyn, N.Y., Nick Provo from Lake Worth, Fla., and Darnell Pratt who attends school in Milford, N.Y., but is originally from Syracuse.

Watson committed to Maryland early in the process and Gronkowski, a four-star prospect whose father played at SU, seemed like he’d be the Orange’s next great tight end. He visited, said the right things and was loved on the message boards. When he announced last month his plans to sign with Arizona, he suddenly became a message board victim.

Fans posted frustrating thoughts toward Gronkowski and pledged their allegiances to Provo. Some even insisted they thought Provo would turn out to be better.

But how many fans have seen them both play? How many have seen all four or any of SU’s 26 recruits play this season? It’s the same way around the country – the recruiting speculation is based on a star system – one which SU’s head coach Greg Robinson continuously mocked during his Signing Day press conference – and Internet reports. Most fans never actually see the players live or on television until their first game with the Orange.

‘We did a nice job of disinformation down in the Florida area,’ Robinson joked about taming hype for Provo. ‘We were always concerned.’

This is not to diminish those message boarders. Their passion drives college football and if there were more SU fans like them, fall Saturdays at the Carrier Dome wouldn’t include so many empty bleachers. (Although winning more than five games in two seasons would probably help that, too.)

Instead, it’s indicative of the inexplicable rise in recruiting interest. But among sports fans obsessed with the scoop – who’s committing, who’s decommitting, which coach is getting fired – winning in February gets as much attention as winning in November.

For those fans, they’ll be glad to know the SU season starts in 205 days – if only because it’s 205 days closer to next year’s Signing Day.

Zach Berman is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear occasionally. E-mail him at ZBerman@syr.edu.

Published on February 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm