Things that will be argued about today regarding recruiting:

– Stars are the greatest indicator success/are irrelevant.

– Alabama/Texas/Florida State has the top class in the country.

– Notre Dame in the top 10 again? Meh/This class proves Brian Kelly will bring Notre Dame back to the top.

– The pronunciation of Cyrus Kouandjio.

One thing that cannot be debated, however, is the fact that the majority of the country’s talent either comes from, or is migrating to, the southern states. With the SEC winning the last five national titles, and USC and Texas technically being located in the southern half of the country, we probably shouldn’t be surprised by this.

But still, the results are staggering: As of Wednesday afternoon, eight of the top 10 teams in the Rivals rankings were from the southern half of the country (the others are Notre Dame/Oregon/Ohio State, depending on the time of day you looked). Of course, a look at the Rivals 100 shows that most of the top prospects in the country come from the south.

This is obviously not a coincidence.

After the jump are eight quick-hit thoughts (I stole that from Anthony) on Signing Day. Read the rest of this entry »

Former PARADE High School Player of the Year winner Mitch Mustain was arrested on Tuesday for selling prescription drugs. Kind of ironic that this news broke on National Signing Day.

From Arkansas Sports 360:

Sportscaster Roger Lodge of KLAA-AM 830 in Los Angeles is reporting today that former University of Southern California quarterback Mitch Mustain was arrested by Los Angeles police Tuesday evening on charges of selling prescription drugs online.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website confirms that a white male named Mitchell Mustain fitting the quarterback’s physical description and having the same birthday was booked at 10:44 p.m. PST on Tuesday. Charges for the arrest are not listed on the site. Bail was set at $30,000. It is not known at this time if Mustain is still being held.

What a shame. Mustain was the starting quarterback for the West team in the 2006 U.S. Army All-American Bowl and was named the 2005-06 Gatorade National Player of the Year and the USA Today National Player of the Year, which was awarded to the first player ever from the state of Arkansas. He went 8-0 as a true freshman at the University of Arkansas in 2006, but he later transferred to USC because Casey Dick eventually replaced him as a starter.

But his situation didn’t improve at USC. Due to NCAA transfer rules, he had to sit out the 2007 season and then watched Mark Sanchez play in ’08. He competed with Aaron Corp and Matt Barkley for the starting job in ’09, but he lost out to Barkley. He even tried out at punter in order to contribute to the team in some way.

Now, with his football career likely over, he becomes the second former USC player to be arrested in the last two days. The good news is that he wasn’t tased like former Trojan and current Viking Everson Griffen was on Monday. Yiiiiikes.