TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Every year, Florida State takes Signing Day and makes it look like the Ringling Brothers' high-wire act. While every other perennial college football power goes into the first Wednesday in February with a load of oral commitments awaiting the rubber stamp of faxed paperwork, the Seminoles stand on the 18th tee with $200 on the line and $100 in their pockets.

But even by the Seminoles' standards, the emotional swings the coaching staff endured on Signing Day left them worn out. "This was the most grueling day that I can remember," coach Bobby Bowden said Wednesday night.

	Ernie Sims -- a LB/RB considered by many to be the nation's top recruit -- is heading to FSU.

That is liable to happen when a school recruits among the best players in the country, who, thanks to the programming needs of various networks, including ESPN, waited as late as 7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday to make their decisions. If Florida State doesn't sign them, the Seminoles can start using those scholarships to wrap leftovers. There's no "B" list in Bowden's pocket.

On Signing Day, under more scrutiny than Florida State has been since the Foot Locker incident a decade ago, the Seminoles fought off their detractors. Bowden and his staff dealt with more negative recruiting than they have heard in years.

As one head coach who went head-to-head against Florida State on several players said, "They got problems. It's out of control. Bobby's got no clue. He doesn't have the energy anymore."

They didn't get many of the fence-sitters that they hoped to get, but they got the players they had to get; namely, local stars Ernie Sims III, a linebacker/tailback whose father and mother competed at Florida State; defensive back Antonio Cromartie, the USA Today Defensive Player of the Year; and wide receiver DeCody Fagg of nearby Quincy.

"I don't know of anything that could make a stronger statement that all's well on the homefront," Bowden said Wednesday night. "If all those kids had left town, you'd say 'Uh-oh, we got problems.'"

That's the good news, but the Seminoles had plenty of the other. Wide receiver Whitney Lewis of Ventura, Calif., whom the coaching staff had described in a memo as "ours to lose," signed with USC when his mother refused to agree to sign the letter of intent for her 17-year-old son. Sherry Laws wanted Lewis to go to USC, while Lewis wanted to hed east and join his high school teammate and best friend, tailback Lorenzo Booker, who signed with FSU last February. A year's worth of recruiting couldn't change her mind.

Recruiting coordinator John Lilly spent a couple of hours on the phone Wednesday explaining to counselors and coaches at St. Bonaventure High that Lewis could go to Florida State without his mother's signature (he turns 18 before fall classes start, meaning he wouldn't need his mom's signature), but he knew a long shot when he had one.

"Recruiting 101," Lilly said. "You got to get the mom. We didn't have her from day one."

The Gators Bite Back

Florida coach Ron Zook paused in the wake of signing one of the top classes in the country to shed the blocks laid on him by his rivals at Florida State on ESPN.com Wednesday. "There was a lot of negative recruiting," Zook said Friday morning, "but it didn't come from the University of Florida. They (the Seminoles coaches) have tried to spin it around. I want you to know that any accusations they made are bullcrap. To me, it's just sour grapes on their part." Athletic director Jeremy Foley said that he planned to call his counterpart at Florida State, Dave Hart, to let him know that the accusations are unfounded. In particular, he responded to the charge that recruits had received overnight packages with negative clippings about the Seminoles at the 11th hour. The story didn't claim that the packages had come from his staff but Foley felt the inference was there. "People want to criticize for hiring this coach or that one, fine," Foley said. "When people criticize your integrity, you have to respond. We didn't FedEx clips. We never have." In the story, the Florida State coaches celebrate when they read that top recruit Ernie Sims, a Seminole signee, had said he stopped considering Florida because he believed the Gators were "lying to everybody." Foley said that in late January, he received a phone call from Tim Cokely, Sims' head coach at Tallahassee North Christian. "I was out of town," Foley said, "and he left me a voice mail in my personal account. He said, 'Mr. Foley, in all my years as a head coach, I've never seen a more classy job of recruiting than (Gator assistant) Mike Woodford and Ron Zook have done.'" Zook said, "I've been coaching since 1976. Find me a guy that I've coached or recruited that I've lied to. Find me one. As much abuse as I have taken since I've been on this job, I don't do it that way." -- Ivan Maisel

The decision stunned the Seminoles, especially Booker. "I just saw him. He's crushed," quarterback Chris Rix said Wednesday night.

It takes confidence to recruit only the top players. The Seminoles' confidence comes from a 14-year string of top-five finishes that included two national championships. That streak ended with the 2000 season, which is why confidence came in handy over the last several weeks.

"I'm not going to take a kid if he's a decent player," defensive line coach Odell Haggins said in his office Wednesday morning. "I want the good ones. Another coach tells a kid, 'You need to commit right now because we may not have enough scholarships.' If the kid takes that bait, I don't want him. He doesn't have confidence."

An unusual number of players waited to make their decisions. "Usually, there are five guys out there (on Signing Day) and you get as many as four," Bowden said Wednesday. "This year, there are 12 out there. If all fall your way, you can't sign them all. If half come, that's perfect. If a couple do, that's good, too."

Sitting behind his desk, a chewed cigar in his right hand, Bowden said, "The main thing is, don't panic."

The Seminoles may have won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship last fall, but they also went 9-5 and endured more twists and turns over the course of the season than a month full of the Soap Opera Channel. The dismissal of quarterback Adrian McPherson, the bowl-game suspensions of defensive tackle Darnell Dockett and Rix, and the 73 candles on Bowden's most recent birthday cake turned Florida State into a piņata for its rivals.

Bowden doesn't believe the negative recruiting had much of an effect. "I didn't have a single kid bring up our problems this year," Bowden said. "I didn't have a single parent bring them up. I brought them up to them."

To help quell the rumors, Bowden had his current contract, which expires next year, formally extended to a five-year rollover deal, even though the university had given him a "lifetime" contract that would have begun when his current deal expired.

"I want to go five more years," he said. "It would take my health, or failure, to change my mind."

The Florida State coaches did little to contain their glee when defensive end D.J. Norris of Pace, Fla., changed his commitment to Florida in order to sign with the Seminoles. After the relatively genteel recruiting tactics of Steve Spurrier, Gators coach Ron Zook and his staff aggressively took on the Seminoles.

"We've had to put out more fires," said defensive ends coach Jody Allen.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden cut him off. "We've been Zookified," Jeff Bowden said. "Call it like it is."

The Florida State coaches had been told recruits deciding between the two received overnight packages in the last couple of days filled with clippings pertaining to the Seminoles' problems last fall.

"Sometimes you're on the defensive when you know you're right," defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews said. "It make it a lot more difficult when you're defending something instead of recruiting."

The local recruits who knew them the best announced their faith in the Seminoles by signing with them. Lilly, working his cell phone and his laptop, usually simultaneously, sat at his desk late Wednesday morning. His colleagues sprawled on the sofa and three chairs in his office. Lilly found an Internet report on Sims' press conference and got everyone's attention.

"Someone asked him about when Florida dropped out of his thinking," Lilly said in his West Virginia twang. He said, 'I dropped them as soon as I heard they were lying to everybody.'" The punch line produced laughs and high-fives all around.

Of the four top players in the Tallahassee area, only Cromartie's teammate, Ryan Gilliam, turned down Florida State. He signed with Oregon. Offensive lineman Marcus Thomas of Jacksonville, the Seminoles' second oral commitment of the year, signed with Florida, while safety Jon Beason of Miramar, Fla., changed his mind late and signed with Miami.

The day began with more promise. By the time that recruiting assistant Carol Moore walked in at 7:30 a.m., carrying a box filled with four tins of sweet rolls, two pans of brownies and a Jethro-Bodine-sized cereal bowl full of trail mix, she was eight minutes late for the first letter of intent to come through her fax machine. Offensive lineman David Overmyer of Lilburn, Ga., who had committed publicly to Clemson, changed his mind after a late push by Allen.

After picking almonds out of the trail mix (QB coach Daryl Dickey went after the M&Ms), Allen complained, "I've put on 10 pounds during recruiting. You're not working out. During the week, you're on the road eating fast food. When you come off the road, you're here for official visits. You're going to eat a luxury meal Friday night and three meals Saturday."

The coaches congregate in front of Moore's desk, because of both the munchies and the fax machine behind her desk. "I changed the toner Monday to make sure it would work," Moore said. The paper tray is full. The coaches wander in and out of Lilly's office looking for news or delivering it. As Haggins celebrated the signing of Clifton Dickson, a Miami defensive lineman who had originally committed to the Hurricanes, Allen is on his cell phone in the hallway, getting the news that Reserve, La., linebacker, Vegas Franklin is signing with the Hurricanes. Any joy he felt about Overmyer evaporates like desert sweat.

Though Overmyer is the first to fax his letter of intent, he's not the first to deliver good news on Signing Day. Shortly after midnight, Lilly spoke with Sims on the phone, and the Tallahassee star told Lilly what he wanted to hear. Likewise, as some of the Florida State athletic department staff gathered in the Varsity Club at Doak Campbell Stadium to celebrate Signing Day and watch Cromartie make his announcement on SportsCenter, Lilly never changed his expression. He sat on a step, flipping his cell phone open and shut, as the cheers rose around him.

"I've had a good feeling for a couple of days," Lilly said with a smile. Within the hour, quarterback JaMarcus Russell of Mobile, announced on Fox Sports Net that he would attend LSU instead of Florida State. Since Fox Sports Net isn't carried on Tallahassee cable, Lilly was reduced to calling his parents in West Virginia and having them put the phone up to the TV.

"This one topped them all," Lilly said afterward of Signing Day 2003. "I'm not going to lie to you. It was funny, but not in a laughing sense."

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.