BY GEORGE SIPPLE
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Even with coaching changes or uncertainty, the perennial recruiting powers continued to deliver top recruiting classes on Wednesday. Florida was projected to have the No. 1 class -- ahead of Texas and Auburn -- despite losing safety Demar Dorsey late to Michigan.
"Few head coaches pour as much of their heart and soul into personal relationships with his players and his recruits than Urban Meyer," said Jeremy Crabtree, national recruiting editor for Yahoo! Sports. "That's why, despite talks of him stepping away for a little bit, he was able to go out there and pull in the nation's best class."
Scott Kennedy, director of online scouting for Scout.com, said the talent that continues to go to the Gators is a testament to the power of the program.
"They were signing No. 1 classes before Urban Meyer and they'll be signing No.1 classes after Urban Meyer," Kennedy said. "They've been the marquee team in the marquee conference in the marquee state the better part of the last 20 years."
Lane Kiffin replaced Pete Carroll at USC and delivered a top-five recruiting class.
"Lane Kiffin and Co. did a tremendous job keeping together the pieces of the puzzle that were already assembled by former coach Pete Carroll," Crabtree said. "The Trojans also closed arguably stronger than anybody else in the country."
Kennedy said the story of the day was how some of the traditional recruiting powers continued to remain top destinations despite experiencing coaching changes.
"Notre Dame, USC, Florida State, Tennessee, and in a sense, Florida," Kennedy said. "That's half of what I might put together as the top 10 list of recruiters around the country, and they all switched over coaches this year."
As for Notre Dame, Kennedy said former Grand Valley State and Central Michigan coach Brian Kelly did OK for his first recruiting job in South Bend.
"What he did was do a pretty good job of holding on to a lot of the guys that were already there," Kennedy said.
"Overall, compared to the last several years, Notre Dame fans would classify this as a class maybe as a disappointment on signing day. But the biggest recruit that Notre Dame got was Brian Kelly himself. We've seen what Notre Dame and Charlie Weis were doing with top-five recruiting classes: They were going .500.
"I've said for years, give me the right coach, the right strength and conditioning department, the right player development and a top-25 class and I'll go to war with anybody."
RELATED INFORMATION
Signing Day rankings
Overall rankings by Rivals.com with the total recruits and 3-, 4- and 5-star players.
| RK | SCHOOL | TOTAL | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| 1 | Florida | 28 | 4 | 18 | 5 |
| 2 | USC | 18 | 5 | 12 | 1 |
| 3 | Texas | 25 | 2 | 19 | 4 |
| 4 | Auburn | 32 | 3 | 13 | 13 |
| 5 | Alabama | 26 | 1 | 15 | 9 |
| 6 | LSU | 29 | 1 | 15 | 13 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | 29 | 0 | 16 | 13 |
| 8 | UCLA | 24 | 1 | 13 | 10 |
| 14 | Notre Dame | 23 | 0 | 10 | 12 |
| 20 | U-M | 27 | 0 | 6 | 20 |
| 29 | MSU | 21 | 1 | 4 | 12 |
| 100 | WMU | 24 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| T111 | CMU | 20 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 115 | EMU | 24 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
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