Nation’s No. 1 Recruit Dorial Green-Beckham To Stay In Missouri

Our own Bill C. put together a spectacular piece on Dorial Green-Beckham’s Signing Day, while Thayer Evans went behind the scenes with the Beckhams, producing this priceless morsel:

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8:30 AM CT -- I arrive at the Springfield Hillcrest gymnasium. Students have not been released to attend yet, so most of the crowd consists of adults from the community and, primarily, press. Lots of press.

For all intents and purposes, Springfield, MO, is the biggest small town in the country. Wind-blown trees. Intense, nearly over-bearing religion. Obsession with fireworks. Walmarts on every block. A man selling flags out of his truck in a parking lot on Glendale Avenue (your options: America, Missouri, Dixie, or Dixie With A Marijuana Leaf and “SOUTHERNER” At The Bottom). From Springfield, you are within an hour and a half of Yakov Smirnoff’s act in Branson, the home of those Precious Moments figurines, Winter’s Bone and a sign that says “Eternal Life: Exit Here.”

That’s a Springfield, Missouri billboard raised in honor of Dorial Green-Beckham, a teenager who’s signed a piece of paper informing the University of Missouri of his intent to play college football there. No word on who it was that erected the sign, but whoever it was has done the most SEC thing anybody did all Signing Day, and for that ... welcome, Mizzou.

For more on the Tigers, visit Missouri blog Rock M Nation.

Video via ESPNU, where we can see Green-Beckham going prop-free for the announcement, as expected. He’s maintained a low-key persona during his recruitment, and this moment was no exception:

Fun fact: Green-Beckham was offered by every team to win a national title in the last quarter century.

National Signing Day is on Wednesday and the nation’s top recruit will be among the high school players appearing on television to announce his intent to attend one lucky school in 2012.

No. 1 wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham will appear on ESPNU at 10:15 a.m., ET on Wednesday. Fans can watch live as he will announce his commitment to his chosen school.

For more on the involved teams, check out Texas Longhorns blog Burnt Orange Nation, Missouri Tigers blog Rock M Nation and Arkansas Razorbacks blog Arkansas Expats.

First, the denial: CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd spoke with DGB’s adoptive father and high school coach, who says there’s nothing to it. Not to be rude, but one probably shouldn’t take that to mean good news or bad news for Mizzou. There’s still an announcement to be made.

Voices from multiple sides of the equation are now casting their lots with Green-Beckham to the Tigers. PowerMizzou.com’s Pete Scantlebury says he’s been leaning closer and closer to Missouri for about a month now, while multiple national Rivals writers have switched their National Signing Day predictions for DGB from Arkansas to Missouri.

A report today from John Hoover of the Tulsa World has Green-Beckham picking Missouri over Arkansas, which is a surprise.

Elsewhere, Bill Connelly of SB Nation’s excellent Missouri site, Rock M Nation, has a tremendous piece on Dorial Green-Beckham. Connelly, who will attend DGB’s announcement ceremony on Wednesday at 10:15 EST, tracks Green-Beckham’s recruitment from tries to cut through all the rumor. He does an excellent job getting down only to the known facts.Then he gets into the rumors, allowing you to decide for yourself. There have been hundreds of pieces written about DGB during this recruiting cycle. This is by far the best. And after separating fact from rumor, what is Connelly’s take on Green-Beckham?

More: Dorial Green-Beckham to Mizzou? Separating fact from rumor.

Keeping DGB in-state would be a massive victory for Gary Pinkel and company. It would also be a sign Mizzou is capable of recruiting at a SEC East level, which may come in handy very, very soon. The enormous wide receiver saved Missouri for his final campus visit, arriving Friday night in Columbia and drawing about as much attention as the basketball team at a Saturday night game.

Dorial Green-Beckham, the top receiver recruit in the country, has arrived for his official visit to Missouri, according to SB Nation Kansas City. He’s being accompanied by his his family, according to Pete Scantlebury.

Green-Beckham is 6’6”, 220 pounds, with excellent speed and athleticism, etc. He’s considered the top receiver prospect since Julio Jones and A.J. Green in 2008. And many think he’s better. And he’s the best prospect in the state of Missouri in forever. Oh, and nobody says anything negative about his character. The consensus five-star recruit is humble, quiet and polite. DGB, as he is known, is considering the Arkansas Razorbacks, Missouri Tigers, Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma Sooners and Alabama Crimson Tide. The former three are considered much more likely destinations than the latter two.

Come on, DGB. LIVE A LITTLE:

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Dorial Green-Beckham is perhaps the most coveted recruit in the country. The 6’6”, 220 pound wide receiver out of Missouri holds offers from every major team in the country. But Green-Beckham rarely does interviews, and when he does, he doesn’t reveal much. But one writer did manage to catch up with ‘DGB’ in person. And as St. Louis columnist Bryan Burwell found out, Green-Beckham is really special.

Burwell went to cover Green-Beckham in a basketball tournament when he realized that many Missouri partisans would be there. But instead of acting like maniacs, the Missouri fans held themselves together. And that seemed to please DGB:

You’ve heard of helicopter parents whirling around their kids’ sporting activities, but what about a helicopter coach? In an effort to woo Dorial Green-Beckham, the top recruit in the country, Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel grabbed his handy chopper and touched down at the young man’s school on Wednesday.

This is the sideshow that is recruiting. Coaches will pull out all the stops -- limos, private jets, helicopters -- to impress a prospective student athlete. The bigger the recruit, the more a coach goes all out to try and gain any kind of competitive advantage.