Today is College Football Signing Day!

Around the country, today marks one of the most significant days in the college football calendar. Today is National Signing Day, which marks the beginning of the national signing period for high school prospects to sign a National Letter of Intent (NLI). While many prospective players have given verbal commitments, nothing is binding until the NLI is signed by a player. Basically, once a player signs an NLI, no other NCAA school can recruit said player.

To the casual or non-sports fan, today might not seem like such a big deal. However, to coaches, recruiting and the ability to re-stock the team's depth chart is equally as important the coaching during the season. The recruitment period is just as big of a deal to fans as well. If don't believe that, check out ESPN's College football recruiting page and the amount of stories and information devoted to talent speculation and trying to determined which 17 or 18 year old will win the Heisman in 2014.

The amount of information about college football recruiting is justifiably so. When each college announces their Class of 2011 today, these are the players who will make up a core part of each roster. While schools can add players after today (the signing period ends April 1st), today's basically college football's equivalent "free agency," except the big signings aren't as spread out as other sports, like MLB or the NBA.

With that said, many of the top recruits have not yet signed, and are specifically waiting to announce their decisions today or are not quite ready to make their decisions. Several outlets, both television and online are airing coverage of college football signing day, including ESPNU's National Signing Day Special, which extends to a record 10 hours running from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. ET today.

For more information on the recruiting cycle in general, I'd recommend Bruce Feldman's Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting, which profiles a the yearlong recruitment cycle of Ed Orgeron, then the Ole Miss head coach.