12 winners and 5 losers from college football’s Early Signing Day

College football’s Early Signing Period got underway Wednesday, and most of the country’s eventual signees put pen to paper with some school or another. Here’s a top-level recap of the day’s action. Recruits can still sign for another two days before the period is up, but most unsigned recruits at this point will wait until National Signing Day on Feb. 6.

Here’s who made out well and who didn’t. Signing Day’s an inherently optimistic time, where it’s easier to identify teams that did well than teams that really had bad days. But there were a couple of those, in addition to a lot of teams that improved their standings. We’ll update these winners and losers as the picture changes over the coming days.

The Tide were already close to a lock for the No. 1 recruiting class, getting back on top a year after their seven-year streak in that spot ended. They currently have their highest-rated class, if you go by average player rating, of the entire Nick Saban era.

They did lose five-star safety Daxton Hill to Michigan, but they made up for that by flipping four-star safety Jordan Battle from Ohio State and then adding two five-stars: huge OT Evan Neal and No. 1 running back Trey Sanders.

Yeah, Bama signing elite tackles and backs. I know, it’s stunning.

The Hurricanes started the week with more decommits than actual commits. That was still true after the first day of the Early Period. Miami didn’t add a single new commitment, and it had a high-profile whiff on Neal, the tackle who chose Bama. It also emerged that four-star 2018 quarterback Jarren Williams is transferring, making a flimsy depth chart at that position even flimsier.

Miami did sign four-star Auburn transfer RB Asa Martin and does still have time to improve its prep class, especially if it gets a commitment later this winter from five-star receiver Jadon Haselwood.

But that doesn’t seem as likely as it did earlier in his recruitment. Mark Richt has to figure some stuff out quickly.

The Dawgs flipped four-star QB Dwan Mathis from Ohio State (a key, given Justin Fields’ likely transfer) and landed the country’s No. 1 linebacker in Mississippian Nakobe Dean. They entrenched themselves as the No. 2 class behind Alabama and continued to establish themselves as the best recruiting program after the Tide in general.

The Buckeyes were on the losing end of two of the days highest-profile decommitments. They lost four-star safety Battle to Bama, and they lost four-star QB Mathis (whom they’d flipped from Michigan State) to the Dawgs.

The Mathis move might just be part of a big game of QB musical chairs, with elite freshman Fields maybe interested in Ohio State. But given the possibility that recent four-star Tate Martell won’t hang around the Columbus QB room forever, the lost depth hurts.

That horrible morning gave way to an excellent afternoon, as the Buckeyes got the highest-rated player yet to commit. That was five-star, in-state defensive end Zach Harrison, a brilliant pass-rusher who has receiver speed.

It looked for months like Ohio State would lose the best player in its home state for the second year in a row, after OT Jackson Carman spurned the Buckeyes for Clemson in the class of 2018. It looked like Michigan would be the team that stole this one away. But the Buckeyes closed strong, and now they have their next great defensive end to follow the Bosa brothers and join Chase Young.

Both teams went with video game themes for their signing announcements:

The Wolverines lost Harrison to the rival that always beats them after being favored for a long time to land him. That’s bad, but it was also foreseeable by the time Wednesday came around. In brighter news, they re-flipped five-star safety Hill from Alabama, who’d swayed him away from them less than two weeks earlier. Hill would be a massively important pickup for any team in the country, but he’s extra big for an aggressive defense that relies heavily on active safeties. Coordinator Don Brown will have a blast coaching Hill.

The Broncos are working one of the best classes in non-power-conference history. They’ve already inked three blue-chips, which is three more than the entire rest of the Group of 5 combined.

One of those is a pro-style QB from California, Hank Bachmeier, who seems like he could be the latest Boise QB to spend three or four years running up big totals on the blue turf. Another, Austin Griffin, is the best tight end coming out of the junior college ranks, and he should help the Broncos immediately.

The Noles have recruited somewhere between one thing they are (a 5-7 team) and another thing they are (Florida State), as they had the country’s No. 14 class as of Wednesday night. Either way, they lost longtime blue-chip QB commit Sam Howell to North Carolina and blue-chip defensive line commit Derrick Hunter to their old head coach, Jimbo Fisher, at Texas A&M (plus former starting QB Deondre Francois to ... anywhere but FSU).

Speaking of those teams ...

Not only did the Aggies take care of business and sign a class that could finish No. 3 in overall ranking, they added a big-time talent in Hunter, who could wind up either as a conventional pass-rusher or a three-technique who slides between the edge and the interior. (I do think he profiles a little bit more as a run-stopper at a listed 285 pounds.)

Right before the ESP, they also lined up the country’s best JUCO cornerback, four-star Elijah Blades, and a high-upside middle linebacker in Ke’Shun Brown.

A report came out that Khalil Tate’s probably coming back for his senior year. Maybe more importantly in the long run, they got two new commitments from blue-chips Kevin Sumlin was familiar with from his A&M days: DB Bobby Wolfe and WR Jalen Curry. Arizona’s class is seventh in the Pac-12 with just 19 commits, but the first day of the ESP was a big one.

UNC got Howell away from FSU, and that was notable. Arkansas has built up a better class than it usually had under Bret Bielema. Both are wildly exceeding the standard for two-win teams.

Arkansas is threatening to finish with a top-25 class, and UNC should stay inside the top 40 despite going 2-9 and hiring a head coach, Mack Brown, who’d been out of the sport for five years before jumping in three weeks before the Early Signing Period.

Also, the Heels signed a recruit named STORM DUCK. They’re winners by default, even though Brown gave this disappointing quote:

Everything went smoothly for the No. 4 class, including four-star additions in DT Siaki Ika and CB Raydarious Jones.

USC shouldn’t ever rank outside the top 20. UCLA shouldn’t ever rank outside the top 50. Granted, they’re both barely outside those spots, but when USC’s getting outrecruited by a two-win Arkansas as UCLA’s betting beaten by a coach who’s been on ESPN for years, something’s way off.

Both classes should have room to grow by National Signing Day, at least.

Almost all of the Pac-12 might be struggling all over the place, but the Ducks had a drama-free ESP Day 1 that included DE Kayvon Thibodeaux, possibly the best prospect in the country, putting pen to paper after a weekend commitment. Not much changed for the Ducks on Signing Day itself, but it bears repeating that they have the highest-ranked non-SEC class in the country.