For many, tonight is tantamount to Christmas Eve. Visions of five-star cornerbacks dance in their heads. Out on some lawns their will arise such a clatter when Ron from next door throws something out the window upon seeing Lenny Linebacker had flipped to Iowa State.

Oh, and stay the hell off daddy’s laptop. No, you may not send your lab partner an email.

Tomorrow is national signing day.

WVU still has a number of things to do, I think, to have a successful day and that includes securing the current commitments as well as adding a few more to the list. The current count — make that, the current publicized count — is 17 and the NCAA max is 25.

At this stage, I doubt WVU adds just to add and get to the max. That’s silly.

There are still a few names out there that are not yet attached to a school — and a few players who are linked to schools — and the Mountaineers might and will spend these eleventh hours trying to get one or two or five to plot their future course for Morgantown.

At the head of that list is receiver Ivan McCartney. I spoke to one person with a pretty reliable perspective and he said he thinks Sticks — that’s what he called him and I’m just relieved the nickname isn’t iMac or Ivan the Terrible — will sign with WVU.

There are connections here, of course. McCartney attends Florida’s Miramar High, same as Eu Smith and Stedman Bailey, same as current WVU commit Dante Chambers. That’s a quarterback and two receivers McCartney played with at Miramar. Oh, and the Patriots are coached by former WVU linebacker Damon Cogdell. So, who knows, maybe it’s enough to push him that way.

Any maybe not. McCartney loved the Florida Gators when he was growing up to become a U.S. Army All-American. The Gators like McCartney very much, too. And McCartney visited Miami over the weekend and rather liked the U. Cogdell played briefly in the NFL for Randy Shannon, who is now the Miami coach.

Yet the Mountaineers are still very much in play because, in part, they don’t have a lot of things going for them. Yet.

“The thing with West Virginia is they lack receiver depth, which is huge for me,” McCartney said. “One thing I noticed though is they lack swagger. If I go up to West Virginia, I’d love to bring some of my swagger up there. Because to me, they have a chance to go to the national championship soon.”