August 1 is a big day on the college football calendar. It's the first day coaches can dispense written scholarship offers to the upcoming senior class, which means it's a day that recruiting staffs can flex their graphic design muscles. Outside of National Signing Day, this is the only day that every school in the country is pumping out graphics head-to-head against the rest of the country.
With that in mind, we've ranked the top 10 graphics here. Any rating such as this is always going to be highly subjective, but I judged each graphic with the following premise: if I'm a 5-star recruit with 100 offers pouring in top of one another, which graphic is going to stand out from the clutter? As you'll see, this typically skews toward one style: offers that offer big, bold images that use their words in a clear, powerful way.
A written offer is not a binding contract, so there's no need to bog down in the strings attached to each offer. There's plenty of time and a number of other avenues for that. No one's signing a mortgage here. If everyone's doing the same thing at the same time, being different will cut you away from the rest of the pack.
Without further ado:
10. Duke. The graphic design isn't as impressive as others, but it doesn't matter. For a top-notch school that builds academics into every aspect of the recruiting process, molding your offer after a diploma is the natural choice.
9. Penn State. This breaks the less-is-more approach to wordiness, but the graphics work more than makes up for it.
8. San Jose State. Crisp, clean.
7. Auburn. Crisper, cleaner.
6. Florida. Cripest, cleanest.
5. Missouri. Like Duke's but more visually impressive.
4. Hawaii. Hawaii has an unfair advantage when standing out from the pack is the name of the game. They have a color scheme that no one else can pretend to match.
3. Texas A&M. Too many programs built their graphics around the head coach. This isn't a media guide -- the offer is about the player, not the coach. A&M worked in Kevin Sumlin in a creative way with top-notch graphics work.
2. LSU. Again, it's a clear image that stands out from everyone else and flows perfectly with the rest of LSU's brand.
1. East Carolina. We've covered this one already, but it's just too perfect to ignore. No one that gets this is going to forget they were offered by ECU today.
Many thanks to Keith Neibuhr for compiling these and for every recruit ever for sharing their offers.