All those ugly losses didn’t stop Notre Dame from landing a beauty of recruiting class.

Same goes for Miami.

And while Alabama’s first season under Nick Saban was so-so, the first Crimson Tide recruiting class the $4 million-per-year coach can truly call his own turned out top notch.

Notre Dame, Miami and Alabama were among the schools – along with national champion LSU, Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Georgia – vying to be No. 1 in recruiting Wednesday, the first day of the national signing period for high school football players.

But not the last day, as Terrelle Pryor reminded everyone. The ballyhooed quarterback from Western Pennsylvania, who has been compared to Vince Young, decided not to decide where he would go to college. Pryor’s delay left Ohio State and Michigan waiting while he takes a better look at Oregon and Penn State.

For Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, signing day was far more relaxing, and much better than most game days in 2007.

Notre Dame is coming off a 3-9 season that ranks as the worst in the history of college football’s most storied program. But Weis, who won 19 games in his first two seasons before Notre Dame bottomed out last year, was able to lure some of the best high school talent in the country to South Bend, Ind.

“It’s still Notre Dame,” said Bobby Burton of Rivals.com. “At the same time when a team is 3-9, highly ranked kids see an opportunity to play right away.”

The Fighting Irish’s class of 23 recruits includes five-star prospects at quarterback (Dayne Crist from Sherman Oaks, Calif.), wide receiver (Michael Floyd from St.Paul, Minn.) and tight end (Kyle Rudolph from Cincinnati).

“I think our program needed this boost,” Weis told reporters. “I think this is a significant boost – the right type of players, the right type of kids and the right type of day. This is the type of day where everyone has to feel good, saying, ‘What a good day.”‘

This makes it three straight seasons Weis has cleaned up on the recruiting trail, so the Fighting Irish might not be down for long.

Coach Randy Shannon took over at Miami after the 2006 season, and his first year on the job was a wash out. The Hurricanes went 5-7 under their former defensive coordinator and, like Notre Dame, suffered several embarrassingly lopsided losses.

New recruits provided a reason for Hurricanes fans to be hopeful. Miami came away with quite a haul, much of it from the fertile south Florida area that has provided the ‘Canes with so many players from their past championship teams.

“Randy Shannon has been a dynamic recruiter as a head coach,” Burton said.

The Hurricanes were expecting signed letters of intent from seven players alone from Northwestern High School in Miami, a team that went 30-0 the last two seasons.

Offensive linemen Ben Jones and Brandon Washington and wide receivers Tommy Streeter and Kendal Thompkins, all from Northwestern High, were among the first players to make their oral commitments to Miami official on Wednesday. All rank among the top players in the country at their positions.