College football recruiting -- every coach is excited, except about recruiting services

Danny Hope, Purdue: "Very excited about today. It's like Christmas. We've waiting a long time to get these guys signed up. We think we did a great job recruiting this class. Adding to our efforts last year, we think we've taken some big steps today towards winning Big 10 championships and being a top-tier football team."

Rich Rodriguez, Michigan: "I'm very excited, as probably every coach in America is today, with the new members of their football programs. I thought our staff did an outstanding job in developing relationships and signing some guys that will be great fits for our program and can -- I think we can help them have great years both on and off the field."

Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson: "We're excited about the class. I think we got some really, really good players, good athletes, speed, guys who can run."

You get the idea. I could fill the entire Internet with coaches who love their recruits. What are they going to say, "We got a bunch of third- and fourth-choices, and we're stuck with them."

What entertains me more is the coaches who weren't handed Top Ten recruiting rankings by the wise guys out there, the self-appointed recruiting gurus. It wasn't hard to find comments made on that subject from coaches.

Wisconsin's Bret Bielema: "We don't personally cater to any recruiting services. It's kind of like in the beginning of the football season, it's nice to be preseason ranked, but the ranking that really matters is at the end. My guess is these players are going to try to shoot higher than (85th) and definitely higher than 30 in their playing careers."

Recruiting sites ranked Bielema's 2010 class from 33rd to 85th nationally.

Scout.com ranked Oregon State 71st nationally and last in the Pac-10. Oregon State's Mike Riley responded:

“I'm always kind of surprised by it.''

Oregon State has won 36 games in the last four seasons.

Tom Shatel of the Omaha World-Herald had a recruiting column Thursday. Here's a passage:

For those who believe in karma, NU's class was ranked 23rd by rivals.com. Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne, who attended the press conference, said, “I think our best teams were ranked 20th, 25th, 30th or 35th (in recruiting)."

Someone who didn't exactly bubble over with glee was Illinois Coach Ron Zook. Two of his verbal commitments -- defensive back Corey Cooper and tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz -- changed their minds and went with Nebraska and Iowa, respectively.

This is from the Dailyillini.com:

Cooper signed with Nebraska on Wednesday morning, citing Illinois' coaching instability as a reason for the switch.

Fiedorowicz, who switched his commitment to Iowa in November, told the Chicago Sun-Times he “didn't like what was going on at Illinois” and that he would feel more a part of the offense at Iowa.

“Obviously, there's a lot of negative recruiting going on, but that's part of it, and the guys we've got here want to be here,” Zook said.

The "negative recruiting" was probably based on facts. Zook fired four assistant coaches and demoted both of his coordinators. And, Illinois went 3-9 last season.

If that isn't an unstable situation, no such thing in college football exists.