Not every recruit is ready to put pen to paper

Signing off on 10 Signing Day Moments:

1. Terrelle Pryor ends weeks of drama and signs with . . . stay tuned. The nation’s top quarterback prospect, who hails from Western Pennsylvania, the cradle of quarterbacks, announced on signing day that he wasn’t signing. Pryor has narrowed his choices to Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State. The suspense is, um, killing us.

2. Roll Tide? Second-year Alabama Coach Nick Saban began making amends for a 7-6 first season by securing, by most accounts, the nation’s top recruiting class. The cream of his crimson crop is led by Julio Jones, the nation’s top receiver. Alabama has still lost six games in a row to arch-rival Auburn.

3. UCLA bests USC in many signing-day surveys. This is not a typo. First-year UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel took an impressive first step in taking on crosstown USC by holding together a top-flight recruiting class in the wake of Karl Dorrell’s firing.

USC, which has won six consecutive Pacific 10 Conference titles, may or may not be worried.

4. Arizona Coach Mike Stoops accuses rival Arizona State of “turning into a J.C.” No one doubted the arrival of Dennis Erickson to Arizona State would heat up this rivalry. Arizona State appeared to have had a better day recruiting than Arizona, with Erickson nabbing a few key players who had previously committed to Arizona.

5. Notre Dame will go forward with 2008 season after landing a top-five recruiting class. Fourth-year Coach Charlie Weis, under intense pressure in South Bend after going 3-9 last season, responded with a recruiting class that should buy him time until . . . spring ball? The only disappointment was failing, late Wednesday, to coax running back Milton Knox away from UCLA.

6. That Nevada kid made the whole thing up. Kevin Hart, the Fernley High player who called a news conference to announce that he had accepted a scholarship to California, admitted Wednesday he fabricated the story because he wanted to play Division I football “more than anything.”

If only Hart would have wanted to tell the truth, “more than anything.”

7. Top running back is Boulder bound. Darrell Scott of Ventura St. Bonaventure High surprised some by announcing he would attend Colorado. Scott had been pursued by Texas, which is losing star running back Jamaal Charles early to the NFL draft. Memo to Scott: bring a jacket.

8. These quarterbacks come from good football stock. Jack Elway, son of John, signed with Arizona State. Beau Sweeney, son of Kevin and grandson of former Fresno State coach Jim Sweeney, signed with California. Riley Dodge, son of North Texas Coach Todd, signed to play for his dad. UCLA recruit Kevin Craft is the son of Tom Craft, former coach at San Diego State.

9. Washington holds its own. Some Huskies fans thought a scathing series in the Seattle Times about the off-field problems of the 2000 Rose Bowl team was targeted to hurt Washington’s recruiting efforts. The Huskies and Coach Ty Willingham, though, fared quite well according to recruiting analyst Allen Wallace. One of the key signings was Redlands East Valley running back Chris Polk, who had originally committed to USC.

10. The rich get richer and the Southeastern Conference keeps getting stronger. The SEC had three of the top six teams in Scout.com’s rankings: Alabama was No. 1, with Georgia at No. 4 and Louisiana State at No. 6. Teams from the SEC, Florida and LSU, have won the last two Bowl Championship Series national titles. Georgia may be the team to beat next year.

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