File under taking cheese, making sandwich: Urban Meyer caps an eyelid-flipping recruiting season with the announcement of Belle Glade wideout Deonte Thompson’s LOI. Deonte commits in keeping with two Florida traditions:

1. Wideouts with curiously spelled first names. See Jacquez Green, Reidel Anthony, and especially wacky “Travis” McGriff.

2. He’s from Belle Glade, one of the most desperate corners of the Sunshine State and a former Gator stronghold during the Spurrier days. The old wisdom was that in Belle Glade, you had four vocations to choose from: cutting cane, going to jail, catching AIDS, or playing football. (For a while, Belle Glade had the highest HIV prevalence of any town in the U.S.)

We’re glad the 4.28-running Deonte opted for football. So’s Urban, who is frankly beginning to frighten us a little with all the competence and drive busting out all over the place. His ambition seems to be without horizon, and appeasement doesn’t seem to be working with him. Get Ban Ki-Moon on the phone! NOW!

Urban: so good only Microsoft Paint could do him justice. (HT: Reader David.)

The bulleted/bolded recruiting update to lift you through your post-lunch sugar crash (this Pixie stick diet is killing you, isn’t it?):

HE HAD THE ANKLES…OF A GOD!!! Some men are ass men, other go straight for the boobs, and others swear by legs, presumably because they anticipate having children who will have to forage for their own food and therefore must be swift afoot. Recruiters? They’re ankle men, according to the Seattle Times, especially for the really, really thin ones. This explains the prevalence of Nicole Richie posters in crack recruiters’ offices, we guess.

He had the thin, lithe ankles…OF A GOD!!!

Joe McKnight, Trojan. Somehow turning down the opportunity to place a baseball cap on his head on national television–why does Joe McKnight hate America?–megarecruit Joe McKnight of Louisiana chooses USC over LSU and Ole Miss. LSU fans desolate, Ole Miss fans purchasing bottled water and taking to basements as all of Mississippi goes on an Orgeron Watch.

Make that an Orgeron Warning, Governor. The Orgeron loses one more top recruit, who foolishly compromised the entire well-being of the state by spurning Coach O to go to not only another team, but in-state rival Mississippi State. Robert Elliott, a four-star running back committed to Ole Miss since last year, de-committed, changed his name, and sent his family to lie low “in an undisclosed location” today. Hail State has the real, extremely very much important reason MSU won out for the in-stater:

“At first I was going to go to Florida State or Ole Miss,” said Elliott. “It helped when Croom told me I could come in and wear No. 2. It was really where I could go and feel comfortable and rock my No. 2. I have been wearing it since peewee and that’s the only number I can rock. If I put something else on,it won’t look right on me. I figure you’ve got to look good to play good. I can’t wear those double digit numbers.”

Given this kind of reasoning, we won’t blame Coach O for eating cinderblocks and chugging benzene to even greater excess around the corpsefire tonight.

Benzene: it’s what’s for dinner.

Hattiesburg’s like South Beach, in that both places have oxygen and most utilities. Antwain Easterling, VHT Dade County running back out of Florida, spurns Miami et al. for…Southern Miss? Instant analysis: Jeff Bower must really be [NAME REDACTED]! And is being slagged by Notre Dame through the internets! Call our lawyer. There are briefs to be filed here, dammit.

The commit means either that Easterling desperately wants to be big fish at USM, or that he’s already been extended a hefty line of credit at nearby casinos. However the feat was accomplished, catfish martinis to SMQ on his team’s signing day coup. We recommend avoiding all roads leading to Oxford on the way to the bar, though–they should be clogged with refugees fleeing the Orgeron’s wrath.

And book me for a quick 18 this afternoon. Spurrier the White, the guy who used to coach Florida in the ’90s, has learned some things in his waking life as the shadow coach of South Carolina, one of them being how to be lauded for his recruiting in the media. His class is being touted as “DeE BEzT EVR” to some into South Carolina, something he’s undoubtedly savoring at this instant while eyeballing a tricky wedge shot from around 20 yards out. Fore!

Mack sends you a gift of barbecue–no bun, of course. Carbs’ll kill you. Low-carb Mack Brown, the skinny version of the coach who shed a fifth-grader between the national championship and the beginning of the 2006 season, brings a slimmed-down but choice selection of only the leanest, protein heavy recruits to Austin: 18 commits in all.

Bruce Feldman talks national recruiting on signing day with us, broadcasting from the Orgeron's forbidding Bone Palace.

MP3 File

Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans of the New York Times pen a piece on Illinois’ recruiting successes rehashing much of what everyone else is goggling about in regards to Illini recruiting; namely, open speculation about how a football Hades like Champaign-Urbana has managed to outfight major powers for some of the nation’s top recruits. On first glance, it’s mostly old hat, save the superb John L. “Slappy” Smith quote:

“If they had a winning program and all of that, it would be a different deal. If they had the greatest facilities in the world, then maybe they could sell them. But what are they selling?”

He added: “Where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire.”

SLAP! The new wrinkle in the piece, though, is an odd bit of indirect accusation Ron Guenther makes against a major university competing head-to-head with Illinois in recruiting that’s “not in the Big Ten. According to Guenther, this university leaked accusations about the Illini through “a web site,” accusations Guenther addressed thusly:

“I take this stuff so seriously,” he said. “I have an interest in the coach’s and the program’s reputation. It’s defamation of character, and it’s got to be challenged.”

Illinois’ gone as far as hiring an outside law firm to pursue the source of the rumors and the identities of the “leakers.” Clenching our teeth around our pipe, relaxing with a copy of Four Quartets, and channeling the spirit of James Jesus Angleton as best we can, we triangulate the intelligence leak given what we know:

–Not a Big Ten university
–Competing head-to-head with Illinois.
–Big enough web presence to make a splash via rumors
–Motivated through Illinois winning potential recruits over

This all points to one place only: Notre Dame. Thank you, thank you. Well be in the study, trying to correctly identify the fifth man and enjoying a nice cognac.

***UPDATE*** The Washington Post has their own slice of pie: messages Benn received from former Notre Dame qbs coach Peter Vaas via text and voicemail. They’re not defamatory or surprising, but they’re another peek into the maelstrom of recruiting. A few choice ones:

Once Benn orally committed to Illinois, Notre Dame assistant Peter Vaas continued to pepper Benn with text messages and voice mails, some of which Benn provided to The Post:

Vaas, who was let go as quarterbacks coach by the Irish after their 44-14 loss to LSU in the Sugar Bowl, did not deny leaving the messages.