Brock Huard’s memory of college football signing day not far off from the present day’s media hype

Uh oh @TheMikeSalk look what I found today….#USATodayDiary @BoyHowdy_ESPN @WhoisKyleBrown pic.twitter.com/DwsBAVZ0un

— Brock Huard (@BrockESPN) February 3, 2016

National signing day has become a full-on event for the country’s top high school football recruits. And the announcements themselves are quite the spectacle.

For example, one recruit recently announced his commitment while skydiving, while another made his announcement through a game of paintball.

Related: UW’s Chris Petersen succeeds in keeping signing day free of drama

Brock Huard remembers a much tamer time when he was a major prep prospect in 1995. And Huard thought he’d have hated all the attention these kids are bringing upon themselves.

Until he looked into his own history.

It was 20 years ago that USA Today asked the then-Puyallup High School star QB to write a daily diary for the paper.

“I think back at what a hypocrite I was… Every week I wrote this diary entry,” he said. “I gave it to my English teacher, he edited it and then he faxed it, probably, to USA Today. And then that thing ran every single week of my high school senior year.”

When it actually came to signing day, Huard said he vividly recalls a switch flipping in his mind.

“This was the first day I remember reading that contract and gulping, and like ‘Oh, now this becomes real,'” he said. “…I remember so vividly sitting at that table, right there on 9th Street, that’s still there, and looking at this contract. Because your scholarship is a contract of what you are now bound to and what you’re going to do.

“Now it becomes, ‘I’ve got to go out and I’ve got earn all of this. And all of this attention, it’s done, it’s over.’ That switch really did flip that morning of that level of responsibility that comes with being wined and dined.”

You can hear the full conversation around the 10-minute mark of this podcast of Wednesday’s “Brock and Salk” show.