This and that from the the signing day notebook

   Here are a couple of nuggets pulled from the river that is National Signing Day.

   * Wes Moulton is ODU's sixth first-team All-Tidewater selection to sign with the Monarchs in three seasons. Oddly, that hasn't been such a good thing so far. The first two, running backs Hykeem Brodie of Western Branch and J.J. Simmons from Lake Taylor flopped and left the program within a year. Then there was Green Run receiver Tavon Gatlin, who signed but didn't make the grade and is now at a Division II school in West Virginia.

   Lineman James Rainey from Ocean Lakes decided he just wasn't interested in playing football anymore after only a semester in the program.

   The only one to make it to the field did so in grand fashion. Marquel Thomas from Bayside scored the first touchdown for the Monarchs last fall. But two weeks later he was on the sidelines with a microfracture in his knee.

   Still, seems with Thomas the luck seemed to turn a bit. Maybe Moulton, a lineman from Ocean Lakes, and a healthy Thomas can get it fully turned around.

   * Coach Bobby Wilder said that of the 18 high schoolers who signed with ODU on Wednesday, eight attended some type of camp at ODU last summer.

   * Wilder said the recruiting for this spring isn't over, but he's taking a short break from it. ODU can sign six more under NCAA rules, which limit a team to bringing in 30 recruits a season on some type of grant.

   * The 19 signed Wednesday (there was a junior college player, receiver Prentice Gill, as well) bring the number of players under ODU's umbrella now to 98 ... and that's eight more than the team can bring in during August.

   There's a complex formula that incorporates Title IX equality issues that affects how many players ODU can bring in for preseason workouts beginning the second week of August. Once school begins, the roster can expand. What it means is that there's now competition among the existing players on the roster, and primarily the walk-ons, as to who will be invited to camp and who will be told to show up when school starts.

   * Wilder said that this summer's ODU camp scene will use Foreman Field to a degree. "Two years ago, we were having to hold our camps on the fields behind Larchmont Elementary School," Wilder said. "Now we have the Powhatan Sports Complex and Foreman Field."

   * ODU now has 25 schools from the immediate region represented on its roster and a higher percentage of in-state players than "Virginia or Virginia Tech," according to Wilder.

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