Recruiting against rival football coaches and other schools would have been the easy part. Al Golden was recruiting against rumors and lies, too. Against uncertainty and doubt. Against opponents’ negative recruiting he said “at times entered into the realm of vicious.” He was recruiting against all those dirty headlines wrought by disgraced booster Nevin Shapiro. And against that invisible monster with sharp teeth: The looming, likely NCAA penalties.

This University of Miami coach persevered through all of that mess and somehow won Wednesday.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you we didn’t get absolutely crushed by our opponents on this. And we fought back,” Golden said. “They saw a soft spot and they went after it. Guys took a shot at us, ok? Get your licks in now. That’s how I feel.”

It was National Signing Day, and no numerical ranking of UM’s recruiting class is necessary to validate what this coach and his embattled program had just accomplished. This was about resilience, about overcoming, about faith.

The day marked a huge victory for Hurricanes football – for this team and for the larger brand – and a huge triumph for Golden in particular.

The day also marked a resounding defeat for Shapiro and the notion one man with a vendetta could bring this program to its knees.

Golden, in trademark orange tie, was feisty in his late-afternoon campus news conference. It sounded like a stump speech designed to rally the troops, and it must have fallen like a sweet symphony on Canes’ fans ears.

What got him going was the idea an NCAA investigation would cripple Miami’s lure and power to recruit.

“We’re the top institution in the state of Florida. Played for the most national championships. Most players in the NFL,” he said. “We need to stand up, we need to fight. Time to stop having an inferiority complex. Are we not supposed to beat Alabama [in recruiting] down here? Are we not supposed to beat Florida and Florida State? We got to start thinking like we’re the University of Miami again!”

UM’s against-odds recruiting bounty would have looked solid, all things considered, even without Tracy Howard, but it was this young man choosing the Hurricanes early Wednesday that lent the exclamation, elevated Miami’s to a consensus top-10 class and put a smiling face on the feeling UM had won the day.

Every fisherman knows that one unmistakable feeling on the other end of the line, that heavy tug that says you have landed something big, something special.

That was Howard, the prized cornerback from the backyard, Miramar High.

Home was in Howard’s heart. Faith in Golden was, too. The decision he revealed Wednesday, live on ESPNU? “I’ve been knowing it for some time now,” he said.

The throng gathered in his high school auditorium erupted in cheers as Howard (whose other finalists were Florida and Florida State) pulled on a UM cap and touched the tips of his thumbs, index fingers up – the sign of The U, the sign you’re family now.

Old Cane Michael Irvin was watching it live on TV like so many other fans.

“I got really emotional hearing that,” he said.

UM-as-family, the bond that makes Irvin care so deeply to this day, is a recruiting ally few schools can match, an ally stronger than an NCAA scandal. High school recruits see and hear countless NFL Canes proudly introduce their school as, simply, “The U.” They watch Ray Lewis on Sundays. They prepare to see a Super Bowl this week featuring Vince Wilfork and Antrel Rolle. Canes, everywhere.

That Howard wanted to be one, too, was symbolic of the resilient power of the UM brand. Considered the nation’s No. 1 college-bound cornerback, he could have gone anywhere. He could have gone to a school surely destined for the top 10, for a major bowl, maybe for a national championship – things Golden was hard-pressed to promise in the face of probable NCAA sanctions.

Howard was asked why the cloud of UM sanctions didn’t affect his decision.

“It did,” he said.

He believed, anyway. Believed in UM. Believed in Golden. Believed in bigger, better days ahead, and his role in them.

Golden didn’t know of Howard’s choice until right before the rest of us did. In the NFL, teams are in control; they draft the players. In college, the players pick the teams.

The mix of eagerness and anxiety didn’t let Golden sleep much the night before signing day. At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday he was up Tweeting: “Let’s go Cane Nation! Time to build a team! Who’s got some juice?! #FINISH!”

And this was the finish:

Howard, natty in a gray suit with a purple tie, looking as good as he possibly could outside of a Canes uniform. Surrounded by family, by support, by love, he said of his decision, “Why not win in my hometown and my city? Why not do it here?” He said of his new coach, “He has a plan. I bought into his plan and I’m ready to rock with Miami.”

Coaches competing with UM for talent would come at impressionable 17-year-old recruits with what amounts to a politician’s negative campaign ads. Other coaches tried to scare kids away from Miami with baseless rumors about the NCAA “death penalty,” about Golden supposedly wanting out, about being buried their entire college career with no chance to play in a major bowl.

If the most fundamental, necessary aspect of college football success is recruiting (and it is), then Wednesday spoke well of the man UM hired away from Temple 14 months ago to replace Randy Shannon. And if the key to recruiting is selling yourself, in making young players believe, well, Golden passes there, too.

Howard was UM’s grand prize, ranked 18th in the nation overall in ESPN’s Top 150, but we’d call Miami Norland running back Duke Johnson (35th overall) the co-star of this class. Four other top-150 guys signed were Palm Beach Central receiver Angelo Jean-Louis (ranked 41st), Tampa Jefferson defensive end Tyriq McCord (96th), Miami Columbus safety Deon Bush (101st) and Miramar receiver Malcolm Lewis (145th).

(UM’s 2012 recruits also included a quarterback worth mentioning not so much for any lofty ranking or star potential but simply for his splendid name: Gray Crow).

Only four schools landed more top-150 players than Miami’s six. Only three schools signed more four-star recruits than Miami’s 11. And none of those others recruited under the shadow that dogs UM.

Golden inherited that unholy mess of a scandal, and survived the resulting suspensions for a 6-6 record his first season. “It’s been a grueling year” he admitted Wednesday. “We’ve been through a lot. The allegations and events of August. The subsequent suspensions and distractions. We took [away] the bowl game so we could move forward. We were honest with kids. We weren’t responsible for [the mess], but we are responsible enough to fix it. We paid a dear penalty [already]. We think we’ve got a lot of that behind us now.”

Golden pointed forward, went to work recruiting, rebuilding, restoring faith.

The result came Wednesday.

It felt like a reward.

One thoroughly earned.