To see the top 15 Orange County football recruits over the past 15 years, click on the photo to the right.

Perhaps O.C. should be called "Quarterback County."

Some of the best quarterbacks in college football have hailed from this county. Carson Palmer, Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart and Tommy Grady all drew major interest from the nation's top programs - with all but Grady (Oklahoma) heading north to USC.

Mater Dei senior Matt Barkley seems poised to continue the tradition, by committing to the Trojans.

National Signing Day - the first day that players can sign a binding letter of intent to play college football - is Feb. 4.

Remember, this is a ranking of how coveted these players were (or should have been) as recruits, not of how they fared after being recruited. Recruiting, after all, is an incredibly inexact science.

Still, it's hard to dispute what the players at the top (at least the ones who already finished their college careers) did on Saturdays.

Contact the writer: dalbano@ocregister.com