Antwain Easterling, who led Northwestern (Miami, Fla.) to the Class 6A state title and earned Class 6A Player of the Year honors after rushing for 2,831 yards and 33 touchdowns, signed a national letter of intent to play for Southern Mississippi over Rutgers and North Carolina on Wednesday morning.

"I just really liked the campus and the environment. I just want to show [other colleges] when I get there what they missed out on,'' Easterling told local media outlets.

It appears that they have missed out on a lot. Easterling, the Dade County MVP, is rated is a four-star rating by rivals.com, is rated the No. 17 running back in the nation by rivals.com and the 39th best player in the state of Florida by rivals.com. Other services think even more highly of him ESPN ranks him as the No. 5 running back in the nation. That's quite an impressive resume and one that most likely makes Easterling the most highly recruited and highly touted overall player ever to sign at Southern Miss.

How did a player as highly rated as Northwestern's Antwain Easterling end up at Southern Miss? It's a complicated story and here's our best effort to piece it together…

Easterling landed himself in some legal troubles when he became involved with a younger classmate. When that happened, a number of schools backed off, but Rutgers who had been recruiting the talented back for well over a year, stayed the course.

Around the same time, Southern Miss was having trouble finding running backs willing to compete with two very good true freshmen backs on scholarship. Damion Fletcher rushed for over 1400 yards last season and Tory Harrison another true freshman back that showed flashes of unlimited potential.

One by one, Southern Miss' running back board began to dwindle. V.J. Floyd of Bishop Moore (Orlando, Fla.) had committed but that would still leave the Golden Eagles with only three backs on scholarship.

Ronnie Sanders, Southern Miss' recruiting coordinator began making calls trying to replenish the board with players that had been missed or with players that other schools had fallen off of. Sanders, who spent three years at Florida with Ron Zook, has deep ties in that state. One of Sanders' calls turned up Easterling.

Jeff Bower and company watched Easterling's highlight tape and were completely blown away. Linebacker coach Fred Tate drew the task of courting Easterling for the Eagles.

Tate, who also signed TE Brennan Houston (Cerritos, CA) and Jamison Wadley (Etowah, AL) this year, contacted Northwestern head coach Roland Smith about Easterling.

Tate flew down just before Easterling's official visit to Hattiesburg. He met with Coach Smith, Easterling and his mother, but Rutgers was still very much in the picture. By this time all charges against Easterling had been dropped, and his legal problems were fading fast.

Easterling came on his visit to Southern Miss and was blown away, but a close friend plays at Rutgers and he has two current teammates heading to New Jersey.

Late into Tuesday nigh the Southern Miss coaching staff didn't know what direction Easterling was leaning.

Around 10:30 AM the Miami Herald reported Easterling had committed to Southern Miss. At 11:15, his LOI rolled across the fax machine at Southern Miss and Antwain was officially a Golden Eagle.

Southern Miss had pulled the coup of the season. Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Jeremy Crabtree had these comments about the signing. "Southern Miss' 12th hour signing of Antwain Easterling is the biggest surprise in this year's class. He is a special talent."

Tom Luginbill of ESPN agreed by saying, "This is the biggest steal of the entire class in our opinion. Antwain Easterling could potentially be a difference maker for Southern Miss. He certainly will get on the field as a true freshman. It was a huge pickup for Jeff Bower and the Eagles."

Fred Tate has done the unimaginable. Antwain Easterling is coming to Southern Miss.