National signing day is Wednesday, and if your team doesn’t have a top 25 class, there’s no need to worry. Brent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune took a look at rankings from Rivals and Scout for the past five seasons and the recruiting sites miss about 40% of the time. Nine teams that finished in the top 25 this past season never even were ranked in the final top 25 recruiting rankings during the previous five Februarys by Rivals or Scout. And four of the teams — Boise State, Louisville, Wisconsin and West Virginia — finished in the top 10. In other words, for every Reggie Bush, there’s a Whitney Lewis, right, who never made an impact at USC and transferred last season to Division I-AA Northern Iowa. Some of the biggest critics of the sites are coaches, who feel added pressure after a recruiting class is ranked. “It certainly looks nice for your alumni when they rank your recruiting class first, second third or fourth, except for three years later when those recruits bomb out and the coach gets fired because those recruiting rankings don’t pan out,” said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. But fans continue to flock to the sites, with subscribers paying $9.95 a month or $99.95 a year for access to premium areas. On Wednesday, Rivals expects 75 million page views. … Thanks to Mary!

Leave a comment