Thursday Links (2/5)

Long day yesterday. I spent from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on campus, which I never actually did even when I was going to college. Of course, when I got home I couldn't help but stay up to watch "Lost" on DVR, and I must say, it's really starting to bother me that Faraday is still wearing the tie. I mean, it's covered in dirt and blood and he's been on the island for two seasons now -- LOSE THE TIE! I feel the same way at bars. If you go out for happy hour and there are a couple guys in ties there, I can live with that. But if some jerk is still sporting his tie by midnight, then he's just showing off. If you'd prefer a more intellectual discussion of last night's episode, I suggest going HERE.

Anyway, hope everyone is recovered from yesterday's Signing Day festivities. Obviously Orson Charles remains a wild card, but I think Georgia's haul yesterday was a good one. Compared to other schools, it wasn't quite a top-five class, but it was close, and the Dawgs filled the needs they had. The Marlon Brown addition at the end was exactly what Georgia needed, given the lack of depth at reciever, and while Murray and Mettenberger -- two of the best prospects of the class -- won't make an immediate impact, Brown and Branden Smith could each have A.J. Green-like seasons right off the bat. I also think it's impossible to overstate how important a statement it was that not a single one of Georgia's public commitments headed elsewhere at the last minute.

I'll have some more football notes posted later today, and we're meeting with players at Butts-Mehre this afternoon, so I'm sure some info will come from that, too. In the meantime, here are your daily links...

-- My signing day lead for the Telegraph dealt with the obvious impact of Marlon Brown.

-- TotalUGA ranks the top classes for 2009, with Georgia coming in sixth -- a number no doubt bolstered significantly by Brown's late addition. Four of the top six were SEC schools.

-- David Ching writes that the addition of Marlon Brown added some nice style points to an already solid class for the Bulldogs.

-- I tried to be pretty informative in my blogging yesterday, but my man Bernie over at Bernie's Dawg Blawg has all the details -- and I mean all of them.

-- DawgsOnline recaps the day that was yesterday with some strengths and weaknesses of the class. I think the issue of so many Georgia players leaving the state is worth noting, particularly in light of Lane Kiffin's reported comments that UGA wasn't going hard after in-state kids. Of course, Old Lane didn't do too well in Tennessee either.

-- While Georgia only got a handful of the top in-state kids, Tech didn't fare nearly that well. Macon's Coley Harvey looks at what Tech did end up with.

-- Get the Picture talks about Tennessee and Florida's Signing Day hauls and also makes a great point (and one that was brought up in the media room at UGA yesterday) about Paul Johnson's hypocrisy regarding Stephen Hill.

-- Did you happen to notice how many recruits Ole Miss has coming in? Thirty-eight! Of course, if a dozen of them turn out to be academically ineligible, then it's really no big deal.

-- Nick Saban is pretty excited about Alabama's take on Signing Day, with good reason. The Tide did well yesterday, and imagine how much better it would have been if they had landed Massie and Reid, as many thought they would.

-- The AJC has lots of Signing Day coverage on their main Georgia page.

-- South Coast Varsity has the details of Arthur Lynch's signing day, which despite being in Massachusetts, couldn't have been much colder than it was here yesterday.

-- Paul Dehner has the story on Shawn Williams' signing day. Williams won't be the most talked about prospect, but he has a lot of pure athleticism and could develop nicely, and from Kelin Johnson to Tre Battle, Georgia has a long history of developing safeties that weren't particularly highly recruited.

-- In my haste, I missed this yesterday from the Banner-Herald, but a big congrats to the Van Halanger family.

-- Deadsping looks at the hype and hats of Signing Day -- and for my money, the hats didn't get any better than Marlon Brown's.

-- If you still need some Signing Day coverage, DawgBone has about a thousand more links for you.

-- I'll have a few more bits of insight from our lone interview with Stacy Searels for the year today, but here are some quotes courtesy of TotalUGA.

-- This new ticket system for Georgia football games looks like it will be good news for students. Of course, getting into basketball games right now really isn't a problem. In fact, you wanna play point guard?

-- I had hoped to make it over to the athletics association meeting yesterday, too, but there was just too much going on. The big story to come of it was that the AA will transfer $6 million to academics, a gesture that really needed to happen.

-- Big game for the Lady Dawgs today, who will try to avoid being the 1,000th victim for Pat Summitt.

-- Did you know Facebook turns five this week? CNN takes a look at the future of the social networking site. And don't forget to be my Facebook friend if you're not already.

-- I'm a big Jeff Pearlman fan, both because he's a great writer and because he's a fellow University of Delaware alum (there aren't many of us doing much with our lives, so we need to stick together!). Anyway, he recently left working at ESPN, and was kind enough to grace us with a top 10 list of the things he hated about the Worldwide Leader. Obviously we agree about No. 1, but I just can't get behind his dislike of Jaws. Although, Jaworski is both a Philly legend and he strangely reminds me of my friend Chuck, so I'm bias.

-- Here's your "Friday Night Lights" link of the day: Apparently Zach Gilford, who plays Saracen, is dating a former Seahawks cheerleader.

-- Why am I strangely intrigued by a Hillary Duff/Faye Dunnaway catfight?

-- And finally, here's a post just for my good friend Mr. Paul Dehner: The Reds season is alrady off to a fine start. If only Sean Casey had been there, something tells me this whole thing could have been prevented.