Back in December, the LSU football team was preparing to take on Notre Dame in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla. The month-long preparation is already taxing enough with final exams, players graduating and mixing in holiday plans around workouts, practices and meetings.
But while the team was busy preparing for the Irish, the coaching staff and key recruiters also were juggling the first early signing period for college football smack-dab in the middle of the chaos.
One of the new wrinkles the NCAA imposed over the summer gave coaching staffs a 72-hour window to finalize any contact with the bulk of their recruits, and LSU relled in 21 commitments the end of of the first signing day.