Jadeveon Clowney finally wrapped up the 2011 recruiting season with his announcement for South Carolina yesterday (Feb. 14th), so, now that it is finally done, I have some thoughts on the landscape. Here they are:

1.) Some people are ripping the process, calling out ESPN, the recruiting services, and the players and their families themselves for the spectacle (such as the Clowney live announcement on ESPN well after National Signing Day) college recruiting has become. Much like Meatloaf, “I won’t do that.” Face it, college football is big business, and I’m a free market kind of guy, so let demand dictate what happens. You don’ like it? Don’t follow Rivals.com, and don’t watch the live announcements. That would end the spectacle real quick. The parties involved do what they do because they can make scratch.

2.) As far as Clowney, athletes should just not be that big and that fast. This kid is a defensive end so athletic he that can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Seriously, if you put Jadeveon’s body on a drawing board against Superman’s, you would call Superman a pussy. The NY Times says he gets a lot of “D’s” on his report card, but that sort of thing doesn’t matter when you are athletically-gifted. Or if you’re a girl, and you’re model-hot. Not saying it’s right or wrong, just the way it is.

3.) Last thing about Clowney, you can’t tell me that deep down, Spurrier doesn’t want to put him on offense. He dreams about it nightly and hides his desire like he used to hide his can of Skoal from his mama.

4.) A math question: If you’re Alabama head coach Nick Saban, and you already have 70 players on your roster, and you can sign 25 new players each year, but can only have 85 total players on your team, how many new players can you sign this year? The answer: 52. Because Nick Saban doesn’t give a shit about simple arithmetic. He manipulates numbers like Enron.

5.) Recruit defensive lineman from the South. Period.

6.) Recruiting is more regional than national these days. Brian Kelly talked about how hard it is to get good players out of their home states. There is a lot of comfort in staying home, and state schools put a lot of pressure on these kids not to leave. The Irish, with all of their positives, couldn’t even lure Savon Huggins out of Jersey. Oh, and going against Rutgers for a kid isn’t exactly like going against Florida.

7.) 5-star recruits bust. I’ll still take my chances on a class full of elite prospects though. It’s called playing the odds. (More likely a great high school player will turn into a great college player, than an average high school player will turn into a great college player.)

8.) Recruiting rankings don’t get ‘em all right, but the schools you see get consistently good classes tend to do well on the field. Hence, you want Rivals to rank your incoming class high on NSD. Recruiting rankings don’t play favorites among the big schools either (however, there is still bias against less popular schools). Remember, this is about money. These gurus have to be credible to be a legitimate business (transparency), so they don’t boost players up or down if they choose Alabama versus Notre Dame, but the big schools have more fans, which equals more potential money, so recruits at a school like TCU can still be undervalued.

9.) Always keep courting. Brian Kelly’s bunch got three elite recruits to sign when it looked like Notre Dame was brushed to the side. Notre Dame can’t recruit itself anymore. Fight fire with fire. Other schools will recruit your verbal commitments, so you must do the same. Also, you can never forget about the ones that are in the fold, they need to “feel loved” or they’ll walk away when you least expect it, and you’ll end up at a bar drinking away you’re sorrow listening to George Strait.

10.) There is no telling what a recruit will choose a school for. It used to be as simple as prestige and academics. Now, it might be anything. Maybe, just maybe, you get a kid’s verbal because he likes your uniforms. The menus a recruit can choose from are huge, and they will order anything.

Recruiting season is over. Teams have added plenty (like 462 if you’re an SEC team) of potential studs (and duds) added to their respective rosters-in other words, Alabama is a different team now than they were in January.

What does that mean?

New pre-season Top 25’s!

Because in this “world at your fingertips” age where even grade schoolers can sign on for text alerts for winter school closings (those bastards don’t even have to get out of bed, we at least had to put on our uniforms, go through some last minute flashcards, while watching the NewsCenter 7 ticker, waiting anxiously until we would receive the news that we needed), college football junkies need revised Top 25’s at least monthly.

And wouldn’t you know it, Notre Dame is not even sniffing the rankings. Or the “almost good enough to be ranked” rankings. In fact, they’re not ranked in any kind of way, which is sad in a world that will rank the top 10 foods that will give you gas.

Notre Dame has some Rodney Dangerfield-like respect going on right now. (”When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.”) Don’t be mad, if you look at some basic facts, that’s really all they deserve.

Fact 1: Notre Dame could start the season with Tommy Rees at quarterback. Or Derek Roback. Or Luke Massa. Who? Exactly. At the game’s most important position, the Irish don’t have an answer. Even celebrated Jr. quarterback Dayne Crist has only thrown one great pass entering his third year. And that was against Washington State, which is kind of like beating up Richard Simmons.

Fact 2: Notre Dame has only two proven play-makers. Michael Floyd, and Kyle Rudolph. That’s it. Jimmy Clausen is gone. Golden Tate is gone. Even insinuating that the defense has a play-maker might cause the internet to crash and burn-and the web was devised in theory to survive a nuclear war.

Fact 3: Notre Dame has no offensive line. Against any remotely talented defensive line, they cave in against pressure like Nip/Tuck shies away from a good plot line.

Fact 4: The Irish defense is susceptible to giving up yards and points like the Titanic was susceptible to icebergs. And Brian Kelly, for all he has done, hasn’t proven to be able to fix a defense (UC games often finished with a combined score of somewhere around the Toyota recall).

There, the evidence has it. Notre Dame has far too much to change before it is involved in any ranking talk. To think anything else would be insanity.

Oh, Colin Cowherd. The host with the most is at it against Notre Dame fans already this week with his “jab you in the rib style” until you’re white-hot with such a fiery anger that you want to channel your inner Mike Tyson, grab some Montgomery Inn Barbecue sauce, chew off a piece of his ear, and savor it like it was the finest of filets (letting it sit on the tongue and opening up the flavor with a nice Cabernet until every single one of your taste buds starts going at it Tonya Harding-style, and clubbing each others kneecaps to reach it first).

He rehashed a familiar refrain that was heard so often back in 2005-Notre Dame is gonna let that grass grow until it is 4 feet tall to slow down USC’s speed, grow it until you can crouch along the ground the and hunt zebras. Long grass=slower playing field to negate an athletic advantage. “Charlie knows that if Notre Dame is gonna go athlete on athlete against USC, they’re gonna get boat raced.”

Genius! This is a significant thought because clearly a slow playing field only affects USC’s players. It wouldn’t bother the Irish’s athletes one bit. The long grass will make Joe McKnight slower-but not Golden Tate.

Once can only hope that commentators aren’t serious when they make comments like these. Please let it be just a little joshin’. Tell me you don’t make “big boy” money and think that some teams pray for a slower field as their only means of salvation. I remember the 2005 game-and the grass didn’t slow Reggie Bush down one bit. When you can play, you can play-and it doesn’t matter where. Alabama’s defense is better than anyone else’s and it is better on grass, on turf, on field turf, on concrete, in the snow, and on the moon. Micheal Jordan could slam it from the foul line on polished parquet, or on a hard brick alley.

To put it another way, do you feel better when your team is stocked full of Bill Gates-caliber athletes versus Usain Bolt-caliber athletes in sloppy conditions rather than Florida sunshine? My guess would be no. And my guess that is that Pete Carroll is confident in his team’s playing ability anywhere.

Look, Cowherd is right in his assertion that Notre Dame should be concerned with USC’s athletes. (Though ND has more athletes than he thinks.) The Irish defense is chopped liver (based on the evidence), which means USC is gonna rack up yards and points with McKnight, Damian Williams, and an improving Matt Barkley. Notre Dame presents USC a challenge offensively with the way Clausen is playing, but will it be enough to negate the damage that will be wrought on ND’s defense? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know if the Irish have the athletes to measure up or not.

But I do know that the game will be decided by who has the better players, and not how long the grass is.