Orlando, Fla. ? The 2011 BCS championship was won Wednesday. If you don’t believe it, ask BamaHound or Irishfever.

Those are the Internet names for a couple of recruiting devotees. On behalf of everybody who looks down on this sub-species of sports fan, I’d like to apologize.

Devotee is one way of classifying them. Other terms include “recruitnik,” “geek” and “loser who obsesses over teenage boys.”

There’s a reason for the obsession. These people want to stay ahead of the learning curve in college football. And as everyone knows around here, few things in life are more important than college football.

That’s always been the case, but recruiting became an addiction unto itself the past few years. Blame Al Gore for inventing the Internet.

Before that, recruiting news came in dribs, drabs and week-old newsletters. Now if defensive tackle Regis McDuffie IV from Altoona, Pa., decides to visit USC instead of Texas, the news flashes across the Web to a breathless public.

Some consider National Signing Day mania silly since there’s no sure way of telling if a recruit will end up in the NFL or in jail.

We look down on recruiting fanatics for not doing something more valuable with their time, like watching American Idol.

We take joy in teams like Kansas University. The Jayhawks went 12-1 last year despite recruiting classes apparently made up of one-legged trombone players.

Then there are five-star flameouts like Xavier Lee, who could throw a pass 70 yards on one knee. Unfortunately for FSU, he couldn’t complete many 20-yard passes on two feet.

There’s no finer time to make fun of the recruitniks than Wednesday. A record 17,467 were on the Rivals.com message boards by late afternoon.

It would be unfair to categorize them all as geeks, since undoubtedly some of them do not live in their parents’ basement or even own a set of Spock ears. They are merely the most passionate of fans, with nicknames like 2BitGator, ALL4UNC, NolesNut and INeedALife.

I had to make that last one up. I was all set to ridicule these people for devoting so much time and energy to such an inexact pursuit.

Unfortunately, a few simple facts got in the way.

News flash: Talent matters.

If you look back over the past five years, three teams stand out in Scout.com’s rankings. LSU, USC and Florida were regulars in the top five.

Of course, so were FSU, Miami and Notre Dame (which would be ranked in the top 10 if its entire recruiting class consisted of Richard Simmons). That mainly proves the talent is only as good as the coaching.

Rivals.com figured out that in the past six BCS title games, no team had an average class ranking lower than 15. USC’s average is 4.4, Florida’s 6.8 and LSU’s 8.5.

The big suspense Wednesday was where Pennsylvania quarterback Terrelle Pryor would go.

In keeping with the obsession theme, he held a nationally televised news conference to say he hadn’t decided.

Pryor may be the next Lee, or he could be the next Tim Tebow. Signing top talent doesn’t guarantee success. But not signing it pretty much guarantees you’re going to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Look at it this way, on signing day 2004 the casual LSU fan (if there is such a thing) was just learning who Glenn Dorsey, Craig Steltz, Early Doucet and Jacob Hester were. The recruiting geeks were already toasting this year’s BCS champion.

None of which means we know who won the 2011 national championship on Wednesday. We did find out who hardly stands a chance.