It was a great night for the old alma mater. I did get to watch the surprise whipping of Indiana to end a ridiculous 26-game losing streak. Gotta thank the new CSS sports network for picking up lots of the ESPN Plus package, although they've got lots of time to fill -- a 30-minute show on Lee University basketball was on right after that.

As for the football team, I guess they did well with their 2003 recruiting class. I've never been a huge fan of recruiting -- at least not the huge fervor for it I see down here. It probably has something to do with my high school not having football and Northwestern only being, at best, middle of the pack in the Big Ten for a variety of reasons.

I can understand keeping a close eye on your team and filling needs, and maybe checking up on some rivals, but sometimes I wonder if these fans that follow recruiting (especially in October and November) care enough about the games on the field during the season. Winning on paper to them seems more interesting than winning on the field. I sometimes wonder about it among coaches as well, but I suppose you can never recruit too early. Plus, there's this creepy aspect of adults keeping waaay too close tabs on the often fickle minds of 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds. Sure many of these kids are talented, but come on, think of how confusing and overwhelming this stuff is. And yet a lot of the "experts" are on top of these kids figuring out what they want to do with their lives.

What makes things even more disturbing is what type of crowd shows up on signing day announcing the new recruits. Many schools schedule the announcements in the evening to get everything together, and possibly to wait for fans to come home from their day jobs to celebrate. Over at Georgia, all of the festivities took place during late morning/early afternoon. This wasn't to appease the students, who I'm sure are interested but won't likely come out in huge droves for something like this. Hey 'Dawg fans, y'all got jobs?

With all of the attention on recruiting at some of the bigger schools, it creates some great expectations for the players and the program. While that's a good sign, it also makes potential failure that much worse. It sometimes seems like the Maurice Claretts of the world are actually the minority when it comes to highly touted recruits. Some players would have to win the Ron Powlus/Beano Cook three Heisman Trophies to be considered a success. At the same time, fans end up embracing some walk-on who emerges as a star player, so it's all over the place.