Christmas Day for college football coaches used to come on the first Wednesday of each February.
That's when they would sit in their offices and watch their fax machines. Starting early in the morning, recruit after recruit would send in a signed letter of intent.
In 2015 and again in '16, then-Illinois head coaches Tim Beckman and Bill Cubit allowed me to be a fly on the wall during their recruiting harvest.
"National Signing Day is the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament rolled into one," I wrote at the time. "It can make or break a program.