The San Diego Section’s all-time rushing leader will be heading to the Bay Area to play football. Escondido’s Ricky Seale signed his letter of intent to attend Stanford University in the fall, and to play for coach Jim Harbaugh on the football team. Seale’s signing, which took place today at the Escondido High School Learning Center, capped months of speculation as to where Seale would land.

“Thank God, it’s finally all over,” said Seale after putting ink to paper.

Seale was one of four Escondido athletes signing letters of intent on Wednesday, a banner day for the North County school. Tim Zier signed a baseball scholarship with SDSU, while Joe Morton signed to play basketball at Wyoming, and Mala Lemay accepted a softball scholarship from Hawaii.

How close did the Aztecs come to landing Seale?

“It was a 50-50 deal all the way,” said Seale, “but Stanford was always my first choice.”

After the jump, watch video of Seale and Tim Zier answering questions on Signing Day:

Seale didn’t know for sure if he would be admitted into Stanford until late last night, when Harbaugh called his house.

“I was just, Oh My God,” said Seale, “I was actually surprised I got in, but I’ve been working so hard for it so I was really happy it all worked out.”

Seale was receiving pressure from inside his own school and to the west as well. Over at Oceanside, the five Pirates who are coming as a group to play under Brady Hoke were reaching out to Zier, asking him to help recruit Seale to SDSU. Meanwhile, the Pirates were trying to keep mammoth defensive tackle Thomas Molesi in town as well; Molesi said he came “this close” to switching, but instead honored his commitment to Oregon State.

Watch Ricky Seale and Tim Zier answer questions from 619 Sports and the assembled media in Escondido:

Seale finished his prep career with 6,694 yards, averaging 7.9 yards per carry. He will compete for playing time in the Cardinal backfield with another San Diego prep phenom, the former section rushing leader (and state player of the year) Tyler Gaffney.

Zier, meanwhile, is excited to begin a baseball career under Tony Gwynn at San Diego State, but admitted that “football is always in the back of my mind.” Zier teamed with Seale to form a lethal combination the past two years in the Cougars’ backfield.

–Story and video courtesy 619Sports.net

–View Ricky’s full SportsForce profile: http://www.sportsforceonline.com/athletes/rseale

National Signing Day for college football marks the deadline in which the nation’s top talents must make their final decisions in regards to which prestigious college programs they will grant their services to. Possibly facing the toughest decision of their lives, these young men have wisely chosen to take it down to the wire in order to explore all of their college football options. The miscalculation of playing for the wrong coaches or system could cost them a chance to play in the NFL. Due to the significance of these decisions, we at SportsForce are honored to be heavily involved with the college recruiting goals of some of the country’s top student-athletes. Our unique relationship with student-athletes and their families allows us to assist in securing the proper college recruiting exposure for them, while ultimately seeking what is most beneficial to the student-athlete during the college sports recruiting process. So far this year we’ve had the pleasure of covering some of the nation’s most elite football players such as Dillon Baxter [USC], Brennan Clay [Oklahoma], Ricky Seale [Undecided] , Damien Williams [Arizona State] and Kenny Stills [Oklahoma] just to name a few. In a year where college football has been shaken up by a multitude of coaching changes, a little recruiting guidance could go a long way.

With four of the top ten players in the nation undecided on where they will play ball, many of the top college recruiters will be working overtime this year. Plenty of big names are still up for grabs; most recognized is the massive offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson (2), who many believe is the best player in the nation and is expected to head to either Ohio State or Florida. Surely the return of Florida head coach Urban Meyer doesn’t hurt the Gators chances of landing Henderson. Keenan Allen (5), who has been compared to NFL star Ed Reed, is suspected to be a Clemson Tiger on signing day. Owamagbe Odighizuwa (8) is expected to leave Oregon in order to attend The University of Nebraska, while top ranked running back Marcus Lattimore (10) currently looks as if he’ll be staying home in South Carolina and playing for the Gamecocks. Other Notable predictions are Outside Linebacker Christian Jones (20) to stay in Florida to play for the Seminoles and Wide Receiver Markeith Ambles (24) to USC.

Wednesday February 3^rd is when all the college football recruiting speculation and uncertainty will end, but the day should not expire without a few surprises. Anything is possible since this is the last chance for many teams to improve their rosters in order to make a run at next year’s championship game. National Signing Day TV specials should be airing on local channels all across the country, so don’t forget to tune in as some of the most prestigious college football programs fight to the very end for the nation’s top remaining talent.

[ x] – Committed college

(#) – National ranking based from Rivals.com

SportsForce athlete, Alysha Isaacson recently committed to the University of Dayton to play softball for the Flyers. Alysha went on an official visit to the school in September and decided to commit after “falling in love with it” according to her mother. The signing period for softball starts November 11th and Alysha will officially sign with Dayton then. Alysha currently plays club ball for Case Batbusters and High School for Hilltop High School. Visit Alysha’s profile on the SportsForce site to see what helped to propel the recruiting process.