1. Rivals has released its initial list of the top 100 prospects for the 2013 class.

2. Here’s a breakdown of the initial group from Rivals.

3. Alabama is making a push for Georgia quarterback commit Brice Ramsey.

4. Sounds like a move by Urban Meyer, who called the upset talk in the Big Ten last week “nonsense.”

5. If you missed it last week, Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan said he doesn’t recruit prospects committed to other schools.

6. Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin believes the Aggies need to focus their recruiting on Texas and Louisiana.

1. Dorial Green-Beckham’s life could have been run by the recruiting process. But it wasn’t, writes Mitch Sherman of ESPN.com.

2. Defensive back Jeremy Cutrer is LSU’s fourth commitment for the 2013 class. All four commits are from Louisiana.

3. CBSSports.com helps take a close look at recruiting ranks after the fact.

4. Florida has offered junior safety Keanu Neal from Bushnell, Fla.

5. Georgia has room to add players to its roster and might do that before the fall arrives.

6. Junior quarterback Christian Hackenberg of Fork Union, Va., is getting ready to start taking trips.

Athlete Stefon Diggs from Our Lady of Good Counsel in Olney, Md., will announce his college decision on Friday night.

Diggs, who’s considered the nation’s third-best athlete by ESPN.com, will make the announcement at 10 eastern time on Comcast SportsNet.

Auburn and Florida are still in the running for Diggs along with California, Maryland and Ohio State.

Diggs took a visit to Maryland last weekend. Two of Diggs’ teammates, running back Wes Brown and lineman Mike Madaras, signed with Maryland on Feb. 1.

Each year in the aftermath of signing day, Rivals.com names its top recruiters of the year.  America’s top fisher of men this February?  Florida linebackers and special teams coach DJ Durkin.

Durkin is starting his third year in Gainesville after being lured from Stanford by Urban Meyer in 2010.  He got his first full-time assistant’s job in 2005 under Meyer at Bowling Green.  (Here’s guessing Bret Bielema wouldn’t approve of his recruiting tactics.)

“I am very, very fortunate to be recruiting at a place like Florida because I think the place almost sells itself,” Durkin said.  “It is a great academic institution and there is obviously great football tradition here.  We play in a great football stadium in the best conference in the world.  I think the place really sells itself.”

“The place” is also located in one of the most fertile recruiting grounds in America.  Durkin didn’t mention that fact, but it certainly helps.

The Gators wound up with a consensus Top 5 class and, amazingly, it could have been even better if several last-minute decisions from prospects had gone UF’s way.

Among Rivals’ Top 25 Recruiters of the Year are seven more SEC coaches:


David Beaty of Texas A&M
Todd Grantham of Georgia
Derek Lewis of Florida
Jeremy Pruitt of Alabama
Kirby Smart of Alabama
Trooper Taylor of Auburn
Lorenzo Ward of South Carolina

1. Get ready for the recruiting circus that is sure to follow 2013 defensive end Robert Nkemdiche from Loganville, Ga.

2. The top-rated unsigned prospect for the 2012 class is getting closer to making a decision.

3. Here are some signing day grades for the 2012 class from CBSSports.com.

4. Alabama signee Dalvin Tomlinson had nothing to do with Darius Philon losing his scholarship at Bama, according to Tomlinson’s coach.

5. Chris Hays of the Orlando Sentinel takes an early look at the 2013 class in Florida.

6. Here’s a look into Kentucky’s efforts to sign its class for 2012.

7. Nkemdiche won’t be the only highly-touted prospect in the state of Georgia for 2013. The group will be large again.

8. South Carolina received a visit from offensive lineman Tyrone Crowder from Rockingham, N.C.

Offensive lineman Jordan Diamond from Simeon High School in Chicago signed with Auburn after announcing his college decision on Friday night.

Diamond becomes the sixth offensive lineman to sign with Auburn’s class for 2012. He joins a group that includes Will Adams from Tyrone, Ga., Patrick Miller from West Palm Beach, Fla., and Avery Young from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Diamond chose Auburn over Arkansas, Michigan, Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

“I had mixed emotions about every school, I liked a few things about every school,” Diamond said, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. “But when it came down to it, the people down there at Auburn really separated.”

Diamond is the 21st player to sign with Auburn for 2012.

This fall will bring another year with an abundance of talent entering the SEC.

Just look at the national rankings and you’ll see the SEC easily outpaced the rest of the nation. That means we should expect to see immediate results from this year’s group of signees.

Here’s a look at the top get for each team’s class in 2012.

Alabama
DB Landon Collins – Dutchtown, La.
It helps the Crimson Tide stole him away from rival LSU. Alabama is once again reloading on defense with so many players headed to the NFL. Alabama’s list is the toughest to pick just one player, but Collins is a good start. He has star potential.

Auburn
OL Avery Young – Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Auburn picked up Young on Signing Day after beating out the likes of Florida, Georgia and Miami. Young projects to be an elite offensive tackle in the SEC and new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler is happy to have him.

Arkansas
LB Otha Peters – Covington, La.
The Razorbacks stole Peters away from Tennessee the day before Signing Day. Arkansas needed a strong finish and got that by landing Peters, who should be able to play for the Razorbacks this fall.

Florida
OL D.J. Humphries – Charlotte, N.C.
The Gators have a terrific class and it starts with Humphries, who some consider to be the top offensive tackle in the nation. Florida’s staff did a great job recruiting the state of North Carolina. Humphries is at the top of the list.

Georgia
LB Josh Harvey-Clemons – Valdosta, Ga.
His recruitment brought plenty of drama toward the end, but Harvey-Clemons is a big-time get and should fit in well with Todd Grantham’s defense. Harvey-Clemons could also help Georgia’s future recruiting efforts in Valdosta.

Kentucky
QB Patrick Towles – Ft. Thomas, Ky.
Towles helps fill Kentucky’s most important position of need. He has plenty of size (6-5, 230) and the Wildcats would love to see him help early. He’ll have competition from fellow quarterback signee Jalen Whitlow.

LSU
WR Avery Johnson – Pompano Beach, Fla.
LSU hopes he can be the next in line of what has been a great group of receivers in Baton Rouge. Johnson won’t have to carry the group immediately thanks to Odell Beckham Jr. and Russell Shepard, but look for big things in Johnson’s career.

Ole Miss
DE Channing Ward – Aberdeen, Miss.
Ward helped lead a strong finish for first-year Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze. Ward is one of the top in-state prospects and gives credence to the job many people expect Freeze to do in Oxford. Landing Oxford, Ala., safety Trae Elston helped add to Freeze’s defensive efforts.

Mississippi State
DE Denico Autry – Scooba, Miss.
Mississippi State is expecting an immediate impact from this junior college player. Autry is an early enrollee and will have a chance to start right away. He’s a big defensive end with an ability to rush the passer.

Missouri
WR Dorial Green-Beckham – Springfield, Mo.
This one is without debate. Green-Beckham could be the top prospect in the nation regardless of position and Missouri hopes he can be a game-changer as soon as he arrives on campus. Quarterback James Franklin will be thrilled to have Green-Beckham on his side as the Tigers enter the SEC.

South Carolina
WR Shaq Roland – Lexington, S.C.
Roland has the potential to be the next standout wide receiver in Steve Spurrier’s offense. The Gamecocks need immediate help now that Alshon Jeffery is off to the NFL. Roland and running back signee Mike Davis should keep South Carolina’s offense on track.

Tennessee
WR Cordarrelle Patterson – Hutchinson, Kan.
Landing the nation’s top junior college prospect on Signing Day was a great way to finish for Tennessee. The Vols should have an explosive offense with Patterson and returning wide receivers Justin Hunter and Da’Rick Rogers. The happiest man in Knoxville? Quarterback Tyler Bray.

Texas A&M
RB Trey Williams – Spring, Texas
Williams could be the next big-time running back to make an immediate impact in the SEC. There’s a reason every SEC team wanted Williams even before A&M had decided to enter the league. Let’s see how first-year coach Kevin Sumlin uses Williams in the Aggies’ new offense.

Vanderbilt
RB Brian Kimbrow – Memphis, Tenn.
Kimbrow helped bring early attention to Vanderbilt’s class when he committed to the Commodores in July. Kimbrow is a U.S. Army All-American and could have chosen Tennessee, Ohio State or just about any other school in the SEC. Head coach James Franklin will try immediately to get the ball to Kimbrow.

With signing day behind us, we wanted to take a final look at the signees who inked scholarship papers with the SEC’s 14 programs yesterday.

As always, we use the star-rankings handed out by Rivals.com as the basis for our comparisons.  We assign point values for each star awarded by Rivals.

Below we examine the final numbers using three different methods.

First, we measure Quantity by looking at the total amount of talent brought in by each program:

Next, we examine Quality by comparing the average amount of points awarded to each school’s prospects:

Finally, we look at only the High-End Signees inked by each school.  The more four- and five-star recruits signed, the better a team’s odds of finding some true playmakers:

To arrive at our final MrSEC.com Recruiting Rankings, we tally up the standings from each category and weight them equally… as each — in our view — is important when trying to determine the true strength of a school’s recruiting class.

(Those final rankings were posted while sitting in the very loud waiting room of a doctor’s office.  If there’s a typo in the charts above, it’ll be corrected soon.)

No area of the country produces more NFL talent than the Southeast.  So it’s no wonder that SEC schools once again cherry-picked the best recruits from their own backyards on signing day.  But before we look at where all of this year’s signees came from, let’s first check out which SEC teams were able to stay closest to home.

Below you’ll find the 14 SEC programs ranked according to the percentage of homestate signees they inked yesterday.  This can be a little misleading because one school might reach for some lesser-ranked in-state prospects while another school might decide to chase better athletes outside its state’s borders.  Still, it’s interesting for the sake of comparison:

Below is the list of states that produced SEC signees this year, ranked from most to least:

Observations:

* More SEC signees came from Georgia than South Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Kansas, Indiana, Arizona, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado and all of the other zero-signee states combined.

* Expect the number of signees from Texas to increase in 2013.  When coaches were making connections with players this time last year, Texas A&M was still looked like a Big 12 cornerstone.  SEC programs will focus much more on that state this year.  Just as more Texas athletes will pay attention to SEC games on television.

* It was a down year in Louisiana which impacted LSU’s signing class and resulted in the Pelican State producing just one more SEC signee than Tennessee.

* The number one non-SEC state for SEC talent?  North Carolina produced 10 SEC signees in 2012.  Ohio was next with five.

* Year-in, year-out, you can expect the staffs at Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt to do more long-distance recruiting than their SEC brethren.  That doesn’t mean it can’t be done — witness Arkansas and Carolina now, Tennessee until the past decade — but it is a tougher slog.

That’s one reason SEC newcomer Missouri plans to send out mass “propaganda” to SEC-region high schools in “numbers you can’t imagine.”

Throughout the day we’ll be posting quick breakdowns of each SEC program’s signing class.  We’ll include the total star rankings handed out per class and we’ll also take a look at each school’s target zones for finding prospects.  In the case of junior college signees, we’ll list the state in which the athlete played juco ball… since that’s where SEC schools had to go to recruit them.

As usual, we’ll use the star rankings and current signee lists as provided by Rivals.com.

Vanderbilt

28.5% of class came from within Tennessee.