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Recruit with elaborate Maryland commitment video signs with UCF

Nick Bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

Wednesday’s National Signing Day taught us to never take a recruit’s commitment video at face value.

Running back Cordarrian Richardson made the pre-NSD decision to commit to Maryland despite not having the school as one of his top public choices. He even made a ridiculous commitment video for Bleacher Report to announce the decision.

But Richardson never signed with Maryland, apparently. Central Florida announced him as a member of its recruiting class on Wednesday morning.

Richardson changed his mind quite frequently during the recruiting process. What teenager doesn’t change his mind a lot? He originally verbally committed to Clemson before considering UCF, Ole Miss and Rutgers.

He said, via UCFSports.com, that he shot the video without a finalist and it was edited to show his Maryland choice.

“Recruiting is stressful,” Richardson said. “That video was done a while ago. They asked me to pick my top five schools … and they edited it.

“I knew it was Maryland two days ago … but I just kind of wanted to surprise everybody. I didn’t sleep very much (Tuesday night) though. I got to bed pretty late.”

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Another recruit with an elaborate video from Bleacher Report also had a stressful signing day. Defensive end Jarez Parks committed to Alabama in a video shot in Paris, but found out at the time of his scheduled signing ceremony that Alabama may not have space for him. Parks eventually kept his commitment to Alabama, but may not be able to join the team until 2018.

Richardson, a native of Memphis, is considered the No. 18 running back in the class of 2017, according to Rivals. UCF Sports reports his signing means UCF finishes with the best recruiting class in the AAC. And it also means you should never trust a commitment, no matter how elaborate, until a school announces its official.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!