Touted linebacker Matthew Thomas has asked for a release from his FSU scholarship. (Steve Mitchell/USA Today Sports)

By Zac Ellis

One of Florida State’s most prized recruits in the class of 2013 might never set foot on campus. Five-star linebacker Matthew Thomas has asked Seminoles coaches for a release from his scholarship, the Miami Herald reports.

The nation’s No. 2 linebacker according to Rivals.com, Thomas told the Herald he informed Florida State coaches that he doesn’t plan to report to campus in the fall. Thomas said he wasn’t fully committed to signing with the Seminoles when originally announced his decision in February.

“I’ve told them it’s nothing personal. I just didn’t make the decision I really wanted to on Signing Day,” said Thomas, who picked the Seminoles over USC, Georgia and Miami.

“What happened was on Signing Day I wasn’t sure who I wanted to sign with. I had issues with different schools. But when I told my mom I didn’t want to sign with anybody and wait and give it a few days she said I couldn’t do that. She said, ‘FSU is a good school –- pick them. It’s close to home.’ I wasn’t agreeing with it. But I felt like I was being disrespectful to her if I didn’t sign. So I made her happy.”

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“The NCAA is no longer worried about what is going on bagels. That is, until some football staff decides to set out lunch meats, pizza bagels or grill steaks and serve them to players on half a bagel.” — Bylaw Blog author John Infante, January 22

Here at Campus Union, we pride ourselves on performing regular acts of public service. Today’s project, dedicated to all those athletic programs out there suddenly freed from the shackles of dry bagels: Celebrating National Signing Day by showing your players just how much, in American dollars, you appreciate their joining the family.

Your incoming freshmen won’t really feel like a teammate until they’re dressed like a teammate. (Do not allow road testing of new sneakers before topping bagels.)

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Punter flip! RT @brdispatch: Punter Johnny Townsend, an #OSU commit, has moved press conference to 4 p.m. Rumors that he'll flip to Alabama.—
Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) February 06, 2013

• Ask not for whom the punter flips. What was funny a little while ago when it was reported that punter Johnny Townsend was headed to Nick Saban’s squad and not former rival Urban Meyer’s is now funny, in a different way, with Townsend signing on with Meyer’s old squad. Either way, Ohio State lost out on a punter, which even in the absence of Jim Tresselball is still pretty giggleworthy.

• “That’s the first time in 30 years I’ve ever been chased out of a development and chased down a highway trying to recruit somebody.” Here is a recruiting trail story from Randy Edsall that you are going to want to read.

• “I’ve taken it about up to here with all the media and the Twitters and everybody.” Hugh Freeze gets frosty, and Andy Staples was there.

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Finally over! Finally a razorback! I'm glad this is over alot of weight off my shoulders happy to be a hog! The camo suit was for the fans!!—
alexander collins (@Budda03) February 07, 2013

L’affaire Alex Collins, the brightest flare-up on a National Signing Day otherwise populated with low-grade fireworks, has fizzled back to earth with as little fanfare as it began. Mallory Rubin stitched together the rough details of yesterday’s events, which culminated with Collins’ mother absconding with his NLI in an effort to prevent him from signing with Arkansas. Today, as expected, Collins followed through with the Razorbacks. His father provided the parent signature. Bret Bielema released the following statement through the university’s athletic department:

“Alex is a great addition to this class. He is an upstanding young man who has impressed us throughout our time getting to know him, and he focused on making a decision that was the best for him athletically, academically and socially. He has high character and is a student-athlete we are thrilled to bring into our family. He made it clear to us that he truly wanted to be a Razorback, which is what we want from everyone we sign. Our goal was to add two running backs in this class to help us with numbers at the position, and Alex was a priority for his on-field impact and the person he is off the field. We have coaches on our staff with tremendous relationships in South Florida that have been crucial for us in this class, and we will continue to establish Arkansas as a choice for top student-athletes from that area. I am looking forward to having this class become part of our family and watching them grow over the next several years.”

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We were off Storifying on SI Dot Com proper yesterday, during a National Signing Day short on drama and appallingly devoid of any baby animals whatsoever. Stewart Mandel has done actual analysis of the 2013 classes, but please don’t think for a second that our brief straying from this space means we have strayed from any of this blog’s core missions — chief among them bow tie assessment. Assorted bests and worsts from the last flurry of national college football activity until August:

• Best neckwear game. This was a close race, and a truly tough call, and while the Nkemdiche brothers made a strong case, Ole Miss had to lose something yesterday. (Like, seriously, one thing. Just one.) Wednesday’s winner: incoming TCU running back Kyle Hicks and this shiny purple number:

TCU tailback Kyle Hicks as he signed his National Letter of Intent with the Horned Frogs today … #TCUSigningDay http://t.co/7k6PPwSh—
Mark Cohen (@tcusid) February 07, 2013

• Best signing ceremony of 2013, critters division. A’Shawn Robinson, a Rivals five-star defensive tackle previously committed to Texas, signed with Alabama Wednesday with the kind assistance of a person in a plush elephant suit. Quick show of hands: Which is creepier? The elephant-stagehand looming in the background?

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Four-star running back Alex Collins verbally committed to Arkansas, but has yet to submit his Letter of Intent. (Landov)

By Mallory Rubin

Update: CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reported Thursday morning that Collins is ready to sign with Arkansas.

Alex Collins, a four-star running back from South Plantation, Fla., has gotten caught up in some classic Signing Day Mama Drama.

Collins went on television Monday night to verbally commit to Arkansas, and while Hogs’ coach Bret Bielema was presumably thrilled to land the blue-chip rusher, it appears that not everyone was pleased with the development. Midday Wednesday, reports surfaced stating that Collins had canceled his afternoon high school ceremony because he needed more time to think. Then, things got really interesting. It turns out Collins’ mother wants her son to stay closer to their Florida home, reportedly preferring the Miami Hurricanes to the Razorbacks. How adamant is she? Well…

ESPNU: Arkansas commit Alex Collins' mom "confiscated his papers" & left. But there's not too much pressure on these kids, right?—
Jon Solomon (@jonsol) February 06, 2013

That’s right: According to ESPN’s Corey Long, Collins’ mother snatched her son’s National Letter of Intent and fled before Collins could send his fax to Arkansas. For the uninitiated: Underage recruits need a parent or guardian to sign the NLI in order to make it valid. Collins is 18, but recruits younger than 21 need a co-signature. From the NCAA’s NLI Frequently Asked Questions hub:

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National Signing Day 2013 has yet to provide a live animal mascot announcement, but it has given us brothers in matching bowties and suspenders in the form of Denzel and Robert Nkemdiche. (Dave Tulis/AP)

If you frequent this space, dear readers, you know that our National Signing Day consumption tends to focus on one thing: the promise of the nation’s most touted prospects incorporating live animal mascots into their announcement ceremonies.

Former Georgia running back Isaiah Crowell set the bar so high two years ago, we were forced to craft a baby mascot prop fantasy leaderboard last year. Tragically, Signing Day 2012 brought us suspenders, but no live tigers. We must hope for more this time around.

We’ve moved over to SI.com proper for the day, so join us there to track the latest social media goodness via our Signing Day Storify. For more NSD content, check out SI.com’s running analysis, list of the Top 100 prospects and much more.

• We put a lot of work into that headline. Be nice. Here is Ohio State’s new logo, to your right. Can you spot the changes? Do you like them? IF YOU DO YOU ARE WRONG AND GROSS:

Though Ohio State could’ve gone any number of directions with the new logo, they instead effectively rendered an end result that looks something like an Adobe Photoshop CS6 mistake from a first time attendee at a design camp. The biproduct is a mark that’s unreadable at best, and appears to the naked eye as “O-S-E hio-tat” (tattoos? Get it?). While the minds behind the creative decision could’ve properly kerned the logo, instead they elected to take the easy way out and completely punt on crafting the typography.

• Crootin’ comin’! Stay tuned tomorrow for our power rankings of ridiculous Signing Day stunts, and place your prop bets now on whether any of SBN’s helpful suggestions will come to pass … Northwestern prospect Matt Alviti is missing part of his ear, which absolutely does count as news, because February … and Reuben Foster is back to Alabama. (For. the. moment.) Did you hear he has an Auburn tattoo? Once or twice? A day? For the last month? Jason Kirk has an excellent point about that:

I really think the ballin'est thing Foster could possibly do is leave the tattoo exactly as-is and never talk about it.—
Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) February 05, 2013

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“There’s this guy in Alabama, I think his name is Nicky Satan, you guys’ve probably heard of him before. I’m gonna outwork him. I’m gonna outwork him, and that’s kind of our plan every single day.” – James Franklin

So this is how this works: We see the above video and we ignore it, for three reasons: First, we have this pathological aversion to a particular strain of message-board speak, whose devotees find the height of humor in spelling USC with a dollar sign in the middle, or Texas with a lower-case T, or calling the former Florida and current Ohio State head coach Urban Cryer like that’s a thing. This kind of stuff has power to repulse us beyond any reasonable capacity, and we don’t really care to explore why, so we steer clear of it.

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Five-star tackle Andrus Peat headlines Stanford's terrifyingly fierce offensive line class. (US PRESSWIRE)

• “When you’re the first person in your family to graduate from high school, you don’t need to be sitting out.” Justin Taylor and family spoke to the AJC about Taylor’s decision to spurn Alabama’s offer of a grayshirt year and sign with Kentucky instead. The three-star running back and Atlanta native will look to infuse some life into a rushing offense that averaged just 124 yards per game in 2011.

• The SEC East resurgence comes not from the south, but from the sides. Andy Staples was on the scene in Nashville as James Franklin reeled in the flossiest class in Vanderbilt program history.

• “Urban Meyer can’t stop yawning.” An unfair excerpt from Stewart Mandel’s visit with the Urbz and his mighty crop of blue-chippers.

• They’ll breed. You’ll die. We legitimately fear the prowess of the linemen Stanford has landed.

• Go west, and north. Steve Sarkisian lost some in-state gems, but pillaged California in return.

• Jordan Payton settles! This counts as news at this point.

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