Five things that you should know about recruiting

Hello friends. As you are aware of by now -- unless you live under a rock, that is -- college football recruiting season is in full swing. With national signing day just over two weeks away, you may be asking yourself: is it too late for me to learn about this world? What is a commitable offer? What does it mean if a recruit is committed to your school but visiting other schools? Is your team assembling the best recruiting class -- or, more specifically, how would you know if they were?

These are all important questions to know answers to when one follows recruiting. And I would love to teach you all of the basics. If we had time, that is. But we don't have time -- like I mentioned, NSD is two weeks away -- so I am going to give you only the important things to know about recruiting. Here's the five most important. You might want to write these down.

1. The first question that you should always ask is not how your own favorite team is doing recruiting wise, but how your rival team is doing? Do they have a better recruiting class than you? Then it's simple: they are cheating. Has anyone checked the bank account of 5-star local talent Flabu Mochapichu's mother? If you work at the local bank, you definitely should do this now (please don't, that's got to be highly illegal). If/when you do so, we guarantee there are extra funds in there, sent over by your rivals. The most important thing to know when talking recruiting is that those sorry sacks of you know what at your rival school are the dirtiest, low-downiest cheating recruiters to ever walk the face of the earth. They have bagmen who hand out $100s to recruits like candy at Halloween. Every car dealership is in their pocketbook. Commissioner of the SEC? He looks the other way, because he's getting a cut too! If I teach you nothing else here today, I hope that you at least take away from our talk this one simple truth: your rivals are cheating to get recruits. No mistaking it friend.
2. Today's recruiting world is just like the real world in that it revolves around social media. It's not enough to talk with your friends about how much you want 6-star safety Eddie VanHalenzero to come to your school, you have to go tweet it and put it on your Facebook account. Wait, what's that you say? Some of these recruits are on Twitter and Facebook as well? Well then! Why don't you just tweet to them how much you want them to come to your school. Make sure you do it daily, and encourage your friends to do the same. This is most definitely an allowed tolerated and widely practiced tactic, so make sure you are in on it too! You don't want your rival school or even Alabama or Florida or USC to have its fans tweet to him more, do you? Of course you don't. Just make sure that you throw in lots of $'s as your s's so that he knows just how much you really want him to commit to your university.
3. Did that highly coveted 7-star quarterback commit to another school over yours? Then let's talk about the proper response. It's not "congratulations", it's not "I'm glad that that young man picked the academic institution that he feels is best suited for him." What is the proper response if a highly sought after recruit picks another school over yours? "Didn't want him anyways". This should always, always be your first choice in responding to such a preposterous decision. Second choice? "He was a grade risk; he won't step foot on campus". You don't want to just let the young man enjoy his choice, you really have to demean him as a person for not choosing the school that you chose 20 years ago to attend sparingly before you knocked up that cheerleader and had to drop out to cut grass at your cousin's lawn care business. Also, when you are demeaning the young man, make sure to throw in a "he didn't have the character required to play for this university". Always a crowd pleaser, and will make you feel better too!
4. On the other side of the coin, there is the chance that that highly ranked recruit chooses your school. Congrats! This is most assuredly a happy time for you as a fan, correct? WRONG. Your first thought should be: "why isn't he rated a 5-star instead of 4?" It becomes so crystal clear at that very moment that the recruiting scouting services are all run by key alumni from your rival school, and they are manipulating the ranking system because they knew six months before the young man even did that he would choose your school. It's sad that they would do that, isn't it? But they are. They are doing it, and you won't stand for it. No, you will shout injustice from atop every message board, every Twitter handle you have commandeered. You will not rest until this wrong has been made right.
5. The last but certainly not least important thing that you need to know before following recruiting these last two weeks is that there are people on the message boards affiliated with your school that know a TON about recruiting. "But if he knows so much, then why isn't he working for one of the recruiting sites instead of hanging out here 18 hours a day?", you might say. Because he is there for your benefit, not for his own financial gain. He is placed there by the recruiting knowledge gods to lend to you his highly in-tune stream of information on everything from which recruit will commit to which one is getting handouts from Nick Saban. "But my friends tell me that he's been wrong about the last 22 recruits that he's predicted commitments for". So?! Nobody is perfect man. The important point to make here is that he knows what he's talking about. He's definitely not just guessing. He's definitely not just finding information on another board or site's article and then sharing with you as "a source told me this". That's definitely not happening. If you're going to enter this sometimes confusing world of sports information, you are going to just have to blindingly trust everything you read and hear from others. Oh, and don't stop there, make sure you spread it to everyone you know.