Nice commitment you got there, Mr. Three Star. Shame if anything were to happen to it.

College coaches complaining about the early signing period is white noise to me You make millions of dollars to coach football and recruit, so what if you have to work harder or more during a busy time/bowl season

— Booger (@ESPNBooger) December 17, 2017

While I appreciate the lack of sympathy on display there for Nick Saban’s whining about the early signing period, that’s not what really has his knickers in a wad.  This is:

The other factor is that Arizona doesn’t have any five-star recruits and isn’t in the running for any. Rivals recently elevated defensive end Adam Plant of Las Vegas to a four-star recruit. Everyone else has three stars.

Plant, who de-committed from Arizona in June and re-committed in November, isn’t expected to sign until February. Analysts believe many of those decisions will fall along those lines: The higher-rated players will wait and bask in the courting process, while the lower- and mid-tier prospects will sign now with schools that expressed interest in them from the outset.

As such, the schools that traditionally sit atop the recruiting rankings — and often swoop in for players very late in the process — probably will land smaller hauls during the early signing period.

“If you’re a four- or five-star, they’re not going to say you’re out” if you don’t sign, Biggins said. “But if you’re a two- or three-star, you’re committed to a school like Nevada and you don’t sign, they’re going to keep recruiting your position.”

Biggins and Gorney say that dynamic puts pressure on prospects who aren’t in that elite class. It isn’t quite at the ultimatum level, but the message is clear: Sign with us now or we’ll move on.

Therein lies the rub.  Alabama isn’t going to fill its 2018 class this week.  There will a few recruits left to sign by the traditional February signing date.  In years past, that would leave Saban and his staff time to turn up a few underappreciated nuggets as well as flip a few recruits from other schools who simply couldn’t match the opportunity being presented.

That script’s been changed, though.  “Bird in hand” has a lot more leverage now than it used to.  The three-star recruit who was told last year to wait and see if something might come up in Tuscaloosa didn’t have much to lose by waiting, since his existing offer with Southwestern State A&M was still on the table.  This year, though, he’s got to weigh losing that offer if he doesn’t sign early against keeping his fingers crossed that Mr. Medical Hardship actually comes through in a couple of months.  Any way you want to look at that, it’s not as appealing for the recruit — which means it’s not as appealing for Saban, either.

Maybe it was meant to be.

I have to preface this by saying I don’t think even Nick Saban is this devious, but, damn, do I wish this was evidence of some serious eleventh-dimensional chess being played.

Talk to people behind the scenes on the Plains, and Auburn 26, Alabama 14 changed everything for Gus Malzahn and the Tigers. Without that victory, insiders say, it’s all but certain Malzahn wouldn’t have that new seven-year, $49-million guaranteed contract.

It’s quite possible he would be the new coach at Arkansas instead.

Go back to the next-to-last week of November. Thanksgiving week. Iron Bowl week. There was a curious vibe at Auburn.

It didn’t matter that the Tigers had beaten Georgia for the first time in four years, dominating the No. 1 Bulldogs as they hadn’t in decades in a 40-17 statement. Or that, despite having two losses on their resume, they had set up an Iron Bowl that would decide the SEC West title and maybe more.

Malzahn was concerned about the Alabama game for a different reason, people close to him say. He was convinced a fourth straight loss to the Crimson Tide would cost him his job. He may not have been wrong.

… Malzahn himself was fully aware of the possibility that the Iron Bowl could be an all-or-nothing proposition. His most insistent demand in the negotiations was that the entire amount of the contract be guaranteed to make it financially prohibitive to fire him in the future.

As concerned as he was, Malzahn had leverage in the Arkansas opening. While the Razorbacks weren’t offering the same kind of money Malzahn eventually got from Auburn, insiders said, that job was Malzahn’s if he wanted it.

Then came Auburn 26, Alabama 14.

Given what they perceived as the choice between losing a coach who’d beaten Georgia and Alabama to a lesser rival in the SEC West or making Malzahn one of the highest-paid coaches in college football, Auburn’s leaders put their faith in Malzahn. They put together a massive new deal that was essentially in place before the loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

Or, as Malzahn skeptics in the Auburn family put it, Auburn got played by Arkansas and Malzahn’s agent Jimmy Sexton, and Auburn caved.

Those skeptics fear that Auburn has given Malzahn too much power based on too little production, that it will be financially disastrous and thus impossible to fire him if he goes 8-5, 7-6 and 8-5 the next three years, that he’ll have no real boss going forward because there will be a new athletics director learning the territory soon.

If you think there’s a downside to Gus being at Auburn for the long haul, then the way things have turned out is a win-win-win for Malzahn, Saban and Sexton.  And all it cost was a loss that didn’t affect Alabama’s chances of making the CFP.

It couldn’t have turned out any better if the three of them had planned it.

Hit the road, Jack.

You gotta love the pious sanctimony on display here.

Mack Brown hot-taking right now on ABC saying Royce Freeman shouldn’t be at the Las Vegas Bowl because he’s not playing before going to the NFL.

— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) December 16, 2017

I’ll take him seriously when he gives a similar hot take for coaches who leave for other jobs before a bowl game.  Somehow, I get the feeling Mack’s all in on Pruitt coaching the ‘Bama defense in the playoffs.

Alex, I’ll take Good Rose Bowl Questions for $200.

Finally, somebody in the media manages to get past Baker Mayfield.

Kirby Smart against Lincoln Riley. Roquan Smith against Baker Mayfield. It’s what sells in this national semifinal Rose Bowl.

But isn’t it possible what wins is Jim Chaney against Mike Stoops? Ogbonnia Okoronkwo against Nick Chubb? A huddle-then-handoff SEC offense against a low-respected Big 12 defense?

It’s kind of sad that those sound almost startling to ask.