National Signing Day superlatives: Wins, losses and waiting

National Signing Day is always filled with exciting moments and major surprises. He’s a look at some superlatives as the first day of the signing period is in the books:

Last Men Standing

Penn State has no coach. The Nittany Lions seem to be striking out at every turn to find one. The fan base is aghast and at least one player, linebacker Tony Rojas, has taken to social media to express his frustration.

Nearly the entire recruiting class was hollowed out mainly by former coach James Franklin and his new job at Virginia Tech but one lone holdout remained as four-star edge rusher Jackson Ford decided to still sign with the Nittany Lions.

He was joined by four-star quarterback Peyton Falzone, who’s had a wild recruitment and ended up re-committing to Penn State after backing off his Auburn pledge in recent days. If those two cannot get standing ovations inside Beaver Stadium next season, no one can.

And at Falzone’s press conference, he echoed many current players by asking that interim coach Terry Smith get the full-time job.

Best Revenge

Meet your new boss, same as your old boss.

Franklin, who got fired by Penn State in mid-October, totally decimated the Nittany Lions’ recruiting class and got 11 prospects to flip to the Hokies as he got set up early in Blacksburg and Penn State is struggling to find a head coach.

Franklin said at his National Signing Day press conference that he wasn’t targeting Penn State’s commit list and that he leaned on relationships he already had but either way it’s some sweet justice for Franklin after getting canned midseason.

The top-six most highly-rated prospects and nine of the top 10 in Virginia Tech’s class were once committed to the Nittany Lions.

Biggest Drama

Brian Hartline cultivated a relationship over multiple years with five-star receiver Chris Henry Jr. and Henry said numerous times that his bond with Hartline was a massive reason why he chose Ohio State early and stuck with them.

Minutes before Henry was to sign – predictably with Ohio State – the Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei standout received word that Hartline was leaving to become USF’s coach.

That set off a tailspin day where as of this writing, Henry is still deciding whether to stick with Ohio State, flip to Oregon (which seems most likely) and now Texas is getting involved with some rumored big NIL numbers.

All of this movement also impacted Ohio State four-star WR commit Jerquaden Guilford as the four-star receiver remains committed to the Buckeyes but LSU is making a major push with all this uncertainty.

Rumor Mill

Early Wednesday morning, the word was Henry Jr. was sticking with Ohio State. Then the Hartline situation happened and everyone from people inside the Mater Dei National Signing Day ceremony and out talked about how Oregon was going to flip him.

Hours later, as the Mater Dei standout still hadn’t signed anywhere, word started floating around that Texas was putting together a massive NIL package to convince Henry to come to Austin. (He’s represented by Texas alum David Mulugheta).

Henry has been committed to Ohio State for more than two years so his recruitment hasn’t been exactly all that thrilling or filled with twists and turns. But once signing day came and Hartline left, no one was being talked about more.

Never Boring

LSU had its fair share of major recruiting drama on signing day and it actually could have been worse but five-star DL Richard Anderson and four-star CB Havon Finney decided to end their recruitment and stick with the Tigers.

As of late Wednesday night, five-star Lamar Brown (who met with coach Lane Kiffin the night he got the job) has yet to put pen to paper and then four-star Deuce Geralds put out a statement that he’d make a final decision by “end of day Friday” as it’s rumored that Georgia Tech and Ole Miss are in pursuit.

There could also be an interesting quarterback development as LSU is making a play to flip four-star Landon Duckworth from South Carolina.

Never an uninteresting day when it comes to Kiffin and LSU.

Keep ’em Home

Instead of dealing with a bunch of decommitments and flips like USC did in the 2025 class, it was the Trojans doing the flipping by landing four-star receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt from Ohio State. He had decided to make the move even before the Hartline news as it’s been in the work for weeks.

The Trojans are holding onto the top spot in the team rankings but it wasn’t drama-free.

Late Wednesday evening, the Trojans finally signed five-star tight end Mark Bowman signed after some rumored NIL paperwork to figure out. He attended Mater Dei’s National Signing Day ceremony in USC gear earlier in the day and his mother was in a USC sweatshirt as well.

More QB Drama

The day before National Signing Day is when the biggest blockbuster news of this cycle happened with five-star quarterback Jared Curtis’ flip from Georgia to Vanderbilt.

The Commodores pursued the Nashville (Tenn.) Nashville Christian standout, had him to a game, worked on him for months and when coach Clark Lea signed his extension, that was a big piece in keeping Curtis home.

While that was the biggest quarterback story by far there were some other interesting follows.

Ryder Lyons was at first not going to sign with BYU but then he ended up sending in his paperwork in and it especially helped that coach Kalani Sitake cleared up that he’s staying and not going to Penn State.

Duckworth will be the other one to watch as he’s now been committed to South Carolina twice but LSU is making a major run at him in the end.

Wait and See

Henry intended to sign on Wednesday but became the marquee name that waited after the Hartline news.

Calvin Russell was also another major one who was sitting on the dais of his school’s commitment ceremony only to say that he wasn’t going to sign with Syracuse on on National Signing Day.

He was later seen in a social media video throwing up The U but it will be interesting if the Hurricanes land him. Rivals’ Marcus Benjamin said Miami, Florida and Florida State have been reaching out in recent days and gave him pause.

Rivals’ Steve Wiltfong also reported that long-time Auburn commit Jase Mathews wasn’t going to sign until Friday even after visiting The Plains over the weekend and meeting new coach Alex Golesh.

The Leakesville (Miss.) Greene County standout kept his word on Wednesday by still considering LSU and Ole Miss.