I never did prior to joining this board back in '06. One of the Buckeyes would talk to me about high school kids Ohio State and LSU were vying for and I had no clue what she was talking about. So I started paying attention to it and then it was fun. For a while anyway.
I'd still follow recruiting, except for that it's pointless as regards my mode of fandom. I liked knowing the players who would be at LSU for the next 3-5 years. I liked knowing that they either chose to represent their state, or had good recruiting visits and we had good recruiting pitches. That's what made it "LSU football" to me when it came time for them to take the field.
Now the amount of roster turnover from year to year is dizzying, and I'm not spending that much time on kids who will come play and transfer out in a year. And who even knows if they really wanted to be there, or we just gave them a better financial deal than other schools.
It's not interesting, and I don't care about recruiting battles anymore, because win or lose, kids who don't sign with us could wind up here anyway, and kids we do sign could (and do) leave.
I used to never like the NFL. Now I'm forced to watch it, and I have to say, there is something a bit more honest about the game there. I didn't like it mainly because it was paid professionals who had no real team loyalty in the end. Now that the same thing is true in college, I find the NFL a bit refreshing, because at least its honest about what it is. Once I settled into that, I found watching the NFL isn't so bad. Just a shame I don't really have a team I root for, and I don't think I can manufacture the kind of fandom I used to have with LSU sports. Somehow the Saints were completely lost on me growing up....and that's probably to the betterment of my mental health.