Recruiting Winners and Losers: Recruits love L.A. (They love it!)

National Signing Day is the annual celebration of high school players becoming college players and teams either getting better or getting disappointed. There were quite a few ups and downs on Wednesday and several teams and recruits that had their fair share of one or the other.

The Dr. Saturday crew breaks down the winners and losers from National Signing Day 2015.

WINNERS

UCLA:

While the Bruins' Los Angeles foes topped Rivals' recruiting rankings in 2015, UCLA did pretty well for itself. The Bruins had the No. 13 class according to Rivals' team rankings, a class that included five-star DE Keisean Lucier-South and five-star quarterback Josh Rosen, who is the No. 1 pro-style QB in the country. Overall, UCLA had eight four-star recruits, including Snoop Dogg's son, WR Cordell Broadus. If LB Roquan Smith ends up at UCLA, the class is even better. But more on him in a bit.

Tennessee: Once again, the Volunteers hauled in a nice recruiting class. Tennessee's recruiting class is No. 5 in Rivals' rankings and includes four five star recruits, one of whom is offensive lineman Drew Richmond, who committed to UT over Ole Miss. After a No. 21 recruiting class in 2013, it's the second straight season UT's class has been No. 5. But here's the catch: it's time for Tennessee to be competitive for the SEC East crown. Doing well in recruiting is nice, but it's time for those results to start translating to wins.

USC back to being USC: USC’s 2015 class marked the first time it had a full allotment of scholarships in three years and the Trojans made the most of all them. USC finished with the No. 1 overall class, according to Rivals.com, landing four five-star recruits and 17 four-star recruits. Its gems included defensive end Rasheem Green and linebacker John Houston, who are high school teammates, and defensive back Iman Marshall, who is the No. 1 cornerback in the country. Eleven of the Trojans' 24 signees are defensive players and all of their five-star recruits are on the defensive side of the ball.

This was a banner day for coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff, which have put together top 10 classes in each of the past two seasons.

Penn State: Penn State finally has its full complement of scholarships available for the first time since the NCAA sanctions levied in 2012. James Franklin and his staff made good use of them by hauling in the 15th-best class in the country and the No. 2 class in the Big Ten behind Ohio State. The class includes 11 four-star recruits and 14 three-star recruits, including six recruits in the Rivals 250. When introduced as head coach last year, Franklin said Penn State would "dominate the state." He backed up that boast by landing signatures from seven of the top 10 prospects in Pennsylvania.

The revenge of Will Muschamp: Will Muschamp might be the new defensive coordinator at Auburn, but he continues to haunt Florida. Two months after the Gators fired Muschamp as their head coach, he swayed three players away from the Swamp to The Plains. Defensive end Byron Cowart — after a lot of unnecessary drama — was the first highly ranked player to choose the Tigers over the Gators, then four-star wide receiver Ryan Davis and four-star linebacker Jeffery Holland all followed suit. All acknowledged that Muschamp’s move to Auburn played a role in changing their pledges. Auburn finished the day with the No. 6 class in the nation, according to Rivals. Oddly, while the rest of the Auburn staff celebrated their recruiting victories, Muschamp seemed rather stoic (that’s him on the left in the black sitting next to a jubilant Gus Malzahn) like he knew it was going to go down that way.

LOSERS

Michigan: Michigan had just six verbal commitments when Jim Harbaugh officially took over as head coach on December 30, so he had a lot of ground to make up in a short period of time to round out the 2015 class. He managed to secure eight more commitments, but the Wolverines’ class is still only eighth-best in the Big Ten and is behind schools like Illinois and Indiana. Additionally, the class only comes in at No. 49 from a national perspective. Harbaugh and his staff will have to put in some serious work for the 2016 class to keep up with Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State.

Byron Cowart saga: Byron Cowart, the top-ranked recruit in the country, announced his decision to attend Auburn early on Wednesday morning, but he didn’t send the school his National Letter of Intent until nearly 4 p.m. ET. The hours in between were full of speculation that Cowart may renege on his decision and go to in-state Florida instead. That never came to fruition, but the chaos it caused is just another example of the unfortunate quirks that come with National Signing Day.

Roquan Smith: Smith announced his commitment to UCLA in an awkwardly drawn out ceremony. He first had a friend eliminate two of his four college choices by taking away signs from the table Smith was sitting at. Then, he dug around a bag for an inordinate amount of time to reveal UCLA gloves. However, he hasn't signed his letter of intent. The Georgia native had Georgia as his other finalist and he reportedly went into his signing ceremony torn between the schools.

The choice also got harder when a report emerged that UCLA defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich was heading to the Atlanta Falcons. Wednesday was the first day Smith could sign with a school; he's not up against a ticking clock. Hopefully he takes his time and makes a decision that he's 100 percent behind.

Colorado State:

Coaching changes can hinder a recruiting class, so it wasn't a surprise to see Colorado State's 2015 class not be incredibly high in the Rivals rankings after Jim McElwain left for Florida and former Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo arrived. However, it was a surprise to see the Rams so low in the rankings. On the heels of a 10-3 season, the Rams have the No. 122 class. That's 15 spots lower than Central Michigan, a team that went through this year's signing day without a coach. Bobo is going to need to counter this year's class with a strong 2016

The Big 12: Congratulations Malik Jefferson, you're the only five-star recruit in Texas' 2015 recruiting class. Oh, and you're the only five-star recruit in the Big 12's 2015 recruiting class. Yes, seriously. There were 36 five-star recruits in the class of 2015. 19 of them went to the SEC. Five went to Florida State. None went to the Big 12's other nine schools. The conference didn't recruit poorly -- eight of its teams are in the top 50 -- but the lack of top talent is startling.

Sam Cooper and Nick Bromberg contributed to this post.