NCAA: National Signing Day Recap

National signing day is American football's equivalent of transfer deadline day. There's going to be drama, constant coverage, last second transfers and finally, a lot of hope for the future. No one knows exactly how that future is going to pan out, but almost every school is going to have a ray of hope after seeing some of the talent that's going to arrive on campus.

After a couple of years of being the object of attention for many of the nations biggest schools, high school players have to sign and fax in their letters of intent to schools to formally enrol at a college. Some recruits like to make a show of their commitments, whilst others prefer to keep it quite or enrol early to get on campus and begin working with the team.

Here's a little DC roundup of the top stories from the day and a rundown of the nations top 5 classes.

The DC Official Rankings

Our DC Official Rankings, compiled by all our writers to give a better UK wide perspective, are in.

The biggest riser is Brighton moving up 7 places after their victories over TVC rivals Portsmouth and Southampton. The biggest faller is Portsmouth going down 7 after their loss to Brighton, their lack of games will also have played a part no doubt.

The TVC took the worst hit this time round with Southampton, Portsmouth, Kingston and Solent all falling because of a combination of postponed games and losses. Only Brighton moved up the poll and BNU make an appearance entering at 25 after flirting with the top 25 like a teenager at a party for most of the season.

The rest of the rankings are pretty much the same as usual with Derby and Sheffield Taking advantage of Southampton's loss and Sitrling's inactivity. Hertfordshire still remain below Birmingham despite last years victory in the final because of the weaker SEC schedule so far, however a victory over UEA could swing it back to the National Champions.

Know your Options: A short guide to Option Football

Know your Options will be a series of articles on the various option schemes we can expect to take over the NFL as the evolution (revolution?) of the run game in the NFL continues. It's aim is to help you, the armchair NFL fan, understand what is happening on each play and how to recognise some of the plays of the soon to be everywhere "read option" offence.

To start off with, a disclaimer. The option is not some new fangled gimmick that has suddenly popped up from the College game. It has been around since 1941 when Minnesota Head Coach Don Farout saw a two on one fast break in a Basketball game and decided to apply those theories to the game of football. Option football has been a feature of College Football ever since.

Over the last season in the NFL this "new" offence has truly taken hold. Last year Cam Newton terrorised teams with his running ability and now this year another crop of young Quarterbacks up and down the league have been putting up stellar numbers not just with their arms, but also with their feet.

International Bowl: Match Report

The 2013 International Bowl was about redemption for the U.S. Under-19 National Team.

Watch the full game here

The sport is bigger than ever, played in every corner of the Earth with 64 International Federation of American Football member nations on six continents.

National Signing Day

The first Wednesday of February every year College Football teams in America finalise their rookie class on National Signing day. This years signing day already has several intriguing storylines before we even get into the potential for 5 star recruits flopping on their commits.

Click here for a list of the top 25 classes according to 247Sports

Here's a run down of the top 5 stories to keep track of:

Alabama not securing #1
Four of the last five years the Tide have secured the Rivals #1 spot for their recruitment class, securing talent to maintain their grip on the Coaches Trophy.

This year however Florida, Notre Dame and Michigan have all pulled interest from some top athletes. Rivals and Scout.com has those 3 teams all projected to finish above the current national champions.