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National Signing Day turns 'excited' into most overused sports cliché

At Todd Graham's press conference on National Signing Day last Wednesday, he said he was "excited" about his recruiting class.

Graham and ASU announced 22 players (now 23 after Terrell Chatman's late-add). His class is rated No. 20 according to Rivals.com with an average star ranking of 3.26, both of which are ASU's highest totals since at least a decade.

But on Wednesday, "excitement" might have surpassed "We're taking it one game at a time" for the most hackneyed sports cliché.

As a head coach, of course you're thrilled that a number of people officially accepted your scholarship offer. You want them to come; that's why you offered. And they finally returned the favor.

Texas A&M; coach Kevin Sumlin said it best.

“There are 128 (Football Bowl Subdivision) programs I guess now, and I don’t think there’s going to be one guy that gets up at this time of day and says they had a bad class,” he said.

If the class is a highly-rated one, coaches can easily point to the stars as justification for it and if not, they'll just say stars don't matter. Such as when South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said, "I think they'll prove to be a little better than maybe all the rankings."

To illustrate just how prevalent "excited" was from coaches, I scoured Twitter and official team sites to find out who said some form of "excited" about their recruiting class. The results are truly astounding.

Pac-12:

ASU | Todd Graham


Arizona | Rich Rodriguez


Stanford | David Shaw


Colorado | Mike MacIntyre

“This is always an exciting day. We’re excited about this class and the hard work that our staff put in.”

Utah | Kyle Whittingham

Oregon | Mark Helfrich


Oregon State | Gary Andersen


California | Sonny Dykes

“We've had a chance to see a lot of these kids grow up. Really know them as people, really think that they fit. Our mission as a university and our mission as a football program. And so that's exciting, it really is.”

Washington | Chris Petersen


SEC

Georgia | Mark Richt

“It’s an exciting time right now for me to introduce these gentlemen,” Richt said on the early-enrollees.

Florida | Jim McElwain


Tennessee | Butch Jones

“Obviously, it is a very exciting day today for us.”

Vanderbilt | Derek Mason


Kentucky | Mark Stoops


Missouri | Gary Pinkel


LSU | Les Miles


Alabama | Nick Saban


Ole Miss | Hugh Freeze


Mississippi State | Dan Mullen

“We’re fired up and excited. Can’t wait for June 6 when they get to enroll in school.”

Auburn | Gus Malzahn


Arkansas | Bret Bielema


Big Ten

Ohio State | Urban Meyer


Penn State | James Franklin

“So excited, excited about the class, and (I) again appreciate everybody coming out to cover Penn State football and the exciting and our exciting future.”

Minnesota | Jerry Kill


Nebraska | Mike Riley


Wisconsin | Paul Chryst


Michigan | Jim Harbaugh


Michigan State | Mark Dantonio

On Andrew Dowell: “Very excited, another 300‑ranked prospect or whatever."

Indiana | Kevin Wilson

“Excited about this class.”

Purdue | offensive line coach Jim Bridge

On Matt McCann: "He's a run-through-you, attack-you guy that we're really excited to have as we continue to develop the identity up front of being the most physical offensive line in the Big Ten.”

Northwestern | Pat Fitzgerald


Maryland | offensive line coach Greg Studrawa


Rutgers | Kyle Flood

“So I'm excited about these players and this really is a day for this 2015 class. We are excited to bring all these players into our program, some that are with us right now and some that will be coming in the summer.”

Iowa | Kirk Ferentz


ACC

Florida State | Jimbo Fisher


Georgia Tech | Paul Johnson


North Carolina | Larry Fedora

“Another exciting National Signing Day here at (North) Carolina.”

Syracuse | Scott Shafer


Pittsburgh | Pat Narduzzi

"Very excited about the quality."

Wake Forest | Dave Clawson


NC State | Dave Doeren


Miami | Al Golden


Boston College | Steve Addazio


Clemson | Dabo Swinney


Virginia | Mike London

“Very, very excited about having Juan (Thornhill) as part of the Cavalier family.”

Virginia Tech | running backs coach Shane Beamer


Louisville | Bobby Petrino


Independent

Notre Dame | Brian Kelly

Big 12

Oklahoma | Bob Stoops

“I’ve always been excited about Rodney Anderson as we like an all-purpose running back."

Oklahoma State | Mike Gundy


Kansas | David Beaty

“I'm really excited about the guys we've signed today. I know they were excited, and we are certainly excited about that.”

Baylor | Art Briles


Texas Tech | Kliff Kingsbury

“Excited about this class, obviously.”

West Virginia | Dana Holgorsen


Iowa State | Paul Rhoads


If you counted along, 52 of 65 Power Five coaches (80 percent) said they were excited (and I realize on a couple, the media may have paraphrased excited) about their recruiting class. I cheated on three schools by using assistants, which brings the total to 55.

Beaty said "excited" 28 times, while MacIntyre said "excited" 23 times and "exciting" seven more. Both recruiting classes are ranked in the mid-60s according to Rivals and Kansas is 9-39 in the past four years while Colorado is 10-39.

I couldn't find any mentions of "excited/exciting" from Jim Mora (UCLA), Steve Sarkisian (USC), Mike Leach (Washington State), Spurrier, Charlie Strong (Texas), Bill Synder (Kansas State), Gary Patterson (TCU), Sumlin, David Cutcliffe (Duke) and Tim Beckman (Illinois).

Maybe their enthusiasm was tempered because they took it one day at a time.


Reach the sports editor at jmjanss1@asu.edu or follow @jjanssen11 on Twitter

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