Feb 4th, 2010 
1 Comment We at jakestakeonsports like to boil things down to their essence, a challenging but worthwhile endeavor in the overpublicized event – and we use that term loosely – known as college football signing day.
So despite the tons of statistics and data and back stories you can get via the internet, here’s all you need to know about college football recruiting as it pertains to the Bay Area:
1. Cal added one of the nation’s top prospects (safety Keenan Allen, who had originally committed to Alabama) at the last moment, making the Bears recruiting class one of the top dozen in the country, according to one reputable recruiting service.
2. Stanford dropped in the rankings in the final days, but signed the highest rated Bay Area high school recruit – quarterback Brett Nottingham — although local high schools were noticeably short on highly rated talent this year.
3. Florida signed the top recruiting class in the country, although some late additions by USC may move the Trojans into the top spot in rivals.com’s rankings.
4. UCLA and USC had the highest rated recruiting classes in the Pac-10, and it seems the departure of Pete Carroll and the hiring of Lane Kiffin did not appreciably hurt the Trojans’ recruiting.
5. Signing day is a weird sporting event.
There is no on-field competition on signing day, yet there is extensive advance publicity, detailed game-day coverage and lively postgame analysis. When the day of competition is over, none of the players really knows who won, but every coach will claim victory and internet nerds will declare winners and losers. The actual winners will not be determined until three or four years later, and by then nobody cares.
It is the one day fans can choose from among several scoreboards and select the one that’s right for them. Cal fans will pick the scoreboard posted by rivals.com, because it ranks the Bears’...
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See what's buzzing around Jake's Take On Sports with the ten most popular posts below:
- Michael Cooper's obscene salute, plus notes
- Disturbing report regarding Oregon's Masoli
- Reading the minds of Pac-10 football coaches
- The Subtle effect of Cal, Stanford injuries
- Gerhart's exit leaves dilemma for Harbaugh
- 6-11 Serbian-born player commits to Stanford
- Harbaugh recruiting model paying off
- A Thursday of strange hoops happenings
- Which Bay Area team was the most impressive on Thursday?
- The Rise of Ogwumike: 30 points, 23 rebounds
Feb 5th, 2010
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A star player being ejected, coaches planning to go without shoes, a team going more than 10 minutes without scoring and still almost winning, a 35-point performance by a player in a loss, and a player scoring seven points in eight seconds to pull out a game that seemed lost.
Those were just some of the ...
Jan 28th, 2010
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The days leading up to college football’s signing day (which is Feb. 3 this year) are some of the weirdest in sports, with players changing commitments and internet recruiting services disagreeing on why they did it or whether it’s a big deal. All reports are made to seem like earth-shattering news because nobody really knows how ...
Feb 5th, 2010
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Cal and UCLA are going barefoot in Saturday’s women’s basketball game at Haas Pavilion.
Well, no, the players are not going sneakerless. There will still be the customary squeaking as the Bears try to move into a tie for second place (with the help of Stanford on Sunday).
No, it is the two coaching staffs that will ...
Feb 7th, 2010
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Perhaps a snapshot of the Pac-10 and West Coast Conference standings should be taken right now, because Bay Area teams are alone in first place in both conferences, but neither is feeling particularly comfortable about its status.
St. Mary’s moved a half-game ahead of Gonzaga in the WCC with its 73-57 victory over San Francisco on ...