Daily Bull 1.30.17: The 5 Good Things About National Signing Day

Welcome to one of the dumbest weeks of college football. This is the time where otherwise more-or-less rational humans go absolutely insane over the whims of high school kids. Your loving editorial staff has always been on record in thinking that recruiting is by far the weirdest, most awkward, and annoying phase of college football. But we know some of y’all really love this shit for whatever reason, so this year, as a special challenge, we have identified the five greatest things about national signing day:

5) #INDUSTRY-on-#INDUSTRY TWITTER SLAPFIGHTS. You know what’s worse than grown men somehow making a living off reporting the whims of high school kids? The thousands of grown men who pay for this service. It’s a giant cauldron of self-importance, entitlement, and brash superiority complexes. Pretty heady stew for a niche of the internet that is trying to turn the virtually impossible (guessing the whims of teenagers) into an exact science with percentages and forecasting models. It is therefore extremely entertaining when some of these turf battles boil over into public forums like this beauty right here.

4) IT IS SINGLEHANDEDLY KEEPING THE FAX INDUSTRY AFLOAT. Imagine you are Bradley Sandlevoss Fax, III. You wake up each morning in your decrepit mansion to yet another flake of paint and one more bill to pay. Your family’s empire is slowly slipping away. Gone are the heady days of the late 1980s and early 1990s when every eager tech-savvy family had their own personal fax at home. No, your family’s legacy is slipping away. You console yourself by watching some Laserdiscs on your giant plasma TV. Then you remember it’s nearly early February. The malaise falls from your psyche like dead petals from a flower: it’s signing day, and hundreds of high school kids around the country are about to give your life meaning again. Sure, there are other pockets of society still churning away on the faxes: shady realtors and the medical industry, bound by HIPAA laws and intricate privacy regulations. But none have the splash or the cachet of college football recruiting. Buck up, Mr. Fax. It’s your time to shine again.

3) SICKK EDITZZ. This is probably somehow worse than tweeting at recruits. This is when dudes actually beg high school kids to DM them so that they can make Photoshops of them wearing college uniforms before they actually commit. At least, it used to be. Now it’s become more streamlined and many universities actually employ “marketing specialists” who are in charge of the photoshops of kids. Or something like that. And, as expected, the whole thing is quite territorial and confrontational. This phenomenon is constantly upping the ante in the uniform Photoshop game, and even creating jobs in some areas. Amazing. Anyway, we suggest you peruse some sick editz sometime if you think you’ve got what it takes to identify the next generation’s Benjamin Knox.

2) IT ALLOWS YOU TO EASILY IDENTIFY THE ABSOLUTE WORST TWEETERS. These come in two categories: first, the obvious ones who tweet recruits. Don’t do that. This includes people who quote tweet a recruit with some cute emoji. Don’t do that shit. It’s still tweeting recruits. Second, and most importantly, the parody accounts. There are a total of about three funny parody accounts on all of Twitter, and we can pretty much assure you that yours will not work. Especially if you are creating one to parody a recruit. Just take a step back and think about it for a moment: is this really what you want to be doing? What is the best possible outcome here? Good Bull Hunting’s twitter account has never even followed one of these, much less retweeted any of the hackneyed garbage they generate. So stop tagging us as well.

1) IT ONLY HAPPENS ONCE PER YEAR. For now. Let’s keep it that way.