The games ended in November for most college football teams, but an important second season is just getting a head of steam by then - college programs that can't win on Signing Day fall behind for years into the future. So that "second season" ends up being vitally important, as recruiting the players who will be the building blocks of your program down the road can make or break your long term game plan, as surely as fumbles and missed tackles can sink the weekly battle plans in the fall.

Even after a sub par 2007 regular season, though, Lion head coach Patrick Ross and his staff were again able to post a star-studded recruiting class yesterday, as the majority of college-bound prep football players announced their college plans. Included in the group is Mike Bunton, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Offensive Player of the Year from Parkway North, who racked up 1,792 yards from scrimmage and scored 24 touchdowns as a senior.

"Our coaching staff worked extremely hard for the last few months putting this group together, and we're proud of the fact that no one else comes close to recruiting the number of Missouri kids that we do," said Ross on Thursday morning. "Most four year colleges in Missouri signed only a few in-state recruits, while we signed 19 from the St. Louis metro area alone. We did well, again, in the Kansas City area, and from both the top big school programs and small school programs in the state. And this group is loaded with kids who are outstanding students, which makes them much easier to coach over the long haul."