It's National Signing Day! As Northwestern's newest Wildcats send in their signed national letters of intent, let's take a trip down memory lane to see how Northwestern put together its 18-member Class of 2019, a class 15 months in the making.

Northwestern's first commit wasn't a surprise. Three-star linebacker Bryce Gallagher, the younger brother of Wildcat linebacker Blake Gallagher, became the first member of the Class of 2019 when he pulled the trigger some 15 months ago.

You can say one thing about the Gallagher brothers: they make up their minds quickly. Blake was also the first commit of the 2017 class, when he pledged some 22 months before.

“I just came to the realization that Northwestern was where I felt the most comfortable and it was where I see myself,” Gallagher, the No. 2 prospect in Massachusetts, told WildcatReport that day. “Coach Fitz is a great guy, the whole staff is made up of great guys, and the chance to play with my older at the next level was just too good to pass up.”

Northwestern's second commitment didn't last very long. Three-star quarterback Cale Millen committed to the Wildcats on his first visit to the school to give Fitzgerald an early Christmas present.

“It’s the best place for me,” Millen told WildcatReport. “Their playing style fits me and their coaching stability is great. They play Big Ten football and I’ve always wanted to play big-time football. It filled all the boxes on my checklist.”

Millen's father, Hugh Millen, played for the University of Washington before embarking on an eight-year NFL career. That fact may have played a role in what came later.

Thomas Gordon didn't waste any time. Three days after getting an offer from the Wildcats, the three-star superback decided to pull the trigger and become a Wildcat. He had visited Northwestern once for a camp the previous June, and that was enough for him to pull the trigger.

“After I got the offer (from NU), I did a lot of logistical research,” Gordon told WildcatReport.com. “I researched how many tight ends they have taken in the past and how many they had right now, and I researched the school in general. When I did that, I realized it was a place I really wanted to go to.”

Gordon picked NU over offers from Power Five schools Baylor, Duke and Iowa State, as well as a handful of Group of Five schools.

Roderick Heard received his offer from Northwestern March 2 and committed nine days later. That may seem rather hasty, but Heard told WildcatReport that he was sold on the program after visiting Evanston for the Iowa game last October and a bowl practice in December. Not even a scholarship offer from Michigan could sway him.

“From my first visit, I could really see myself going there,” said Heard, less than two hours after his commitment. “I like what they’re building. I like the energy the team had in practices. I like the new facility they’re building, and I feel like there are a lot of great things going on.”

Heard chose Northwestern over 17 other schools. He wouldn't be the first cornerback of the class for very long.

Just two days after Heard's commitment, three-star Cameron Mitchell committed to the Wildcats on Tuesday to give NU a pair of bookend cornerbacks.

Mitchell had been one of NU’s top targets and visited Evanston several times. He chose the Wildcats over offers from Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Toledo and Western Michigan, as well as early interest from Notre Dame and Stanford.

"Northwestern gives you the best of both worlds," Mitchell told EdgyTim. "It's the best of the best in education and I'll also get to play football in the best conference in college football. It doesn't get any better than that."

Two visits to Northwestern pretty much convinced Conrad Rowley that he wanted to be a Wildcat. However, the catch is that Rowley’s visits were in the previous October and December, which means that he hadn’t been on campus in more than three months.

“I wanted to see other things,” is how Rowley explained the gap. “But it turns out, the right place was right in front of me.”

Rowley chose NU over Iowa State, Kansas and Rice and wound up setting off a mini-run of offensive linemen.

Call guard commit Dominick D'Antonio the Natural.

As amazing as it sounds, the unranked prospect from Georgia first started playing football in the fall of 2017. By Week 7, he had his first scholarship offer. He eventually picked up 21 offers, including one from Northwestern the day he arrived for an overnight visit. The very next day, when NU formally opened its new Ryan Fieldhouse indoor practice facility, D'Antonio pulled the trigger after watching practice.

“When Coach Fitzgerald offered me, that got me really excited,” he said. “They were one of my favorite schools, even though I’ve never been there. Once I toured the campus and saw that facility, I knew that it was a place that I wanted to play football.”

Northwestern's OL run continued when tackle Connor Foster, who was also on campus with D'Antonio during the first open practice at Ryan Fieldhouse, joined the 2019 class five days later - with a little help from former Wildcat tackle Zach Strief.

Strief, who was also a Milford (Ohio) product, mentored Foster through the recruiting process.

“He helped me a lot in the process, he sent me a letter explaining how I should handle recruiting and what I should focus on when I make my decision,” Foster said.

Foster, who at 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds is about the same size as Strief was, became the third straight offensive linemen to pledge the Wildcats, picking Northwestern over offers from nine other schools, including Kentucky, Purdue and Vanderbilt from the Power Five.

If only all recruitments could go as smoothly as Adetomiwa Adebawore's.

The three-star defensive arrived in Evanston for his first visit on Friday. He picked up an offer that same day, spent the night on campus and watched a spring practice on Saturday. By Monday, he was a Wildcat, and on Tuesday he announced it on Twitter.

“That school was always in the back of my head,” said Adebawore, whose 18-school offer list included one other Power Five school, Washington State. “I visited to see what it was like and I saw that the coaches and the players are great people. They have great academics and Big Ten football, so it seems perfect for me.”

Northwestern got "Deuced" again, this time by Cale Millen.

The quarterback decommitted from Northwestern about four and a half months after he became the second member of the class back in December. The same scenario happened in 2015, when quarterback Deuce Wallace decommitted from NU to flip to Vanderbilt.

Millen wound up committing to Oregon two weeks later.

There was no commitment (or decommitment) on this day, but it deserves a mention because it was the date that Northwestern's first-even spring official visitors arrived on campus. NCAA rules allowed prospects for the first time to take officials in May and June of their junior years. The Wildcats hosted four official visitors, and two of them wound up committing.

The two commits will show up later in this story. The two who didn't were four-star running back Jirehl Brock, who wound up committing to Iowa State, and three-star linebacker Luke Fulton, a Michigan State recruit.

Three-star Jason Gold got Northwestern recruiting back on track when he committed in mid-May to become the second defensive linemen of the class. Gold told WildcatReport that an overnight visit to Northwestern two weeks earlier was what sealed the deal.

“That’s when Northwestern went to the top of my list,” said Gold, who visited with his parents. “They just built that brand new facility. I really liked the campus, the environment and the people. It was just a feel type of thing.”

The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Texas is ranked as a defensive end by Rivals but will play defensive tackle for the Wildcats.

Gold's commitment had a direct impact on the timeline of three-star DT Duke Olges. The New Trier star took his first visit to Northwestern as a recruit on Sunday morning, the day after Gold committed. The Wildcats wanted just one more defensive tackle, and there was another DT with an offer visiting later that day.

So Olges, who had been to "countless" Northwestern games growing up, decided to commit right then and there, and then not announce it until five days later.

“I didn’t know if it was the right decision, to be honest. It was impulse more than anything,” said Olges, who became the 10th member of the class. “But what comforted me is after having a couple days to think about it, I felt a sigh of relief. It would have hurt me too much to let that scholarship go. As much as I wanted to go and visit other schools, losing that scholarship would have hurt more than anything else.”

Northwestern got its first commitment from one of those spring official visitors when three-star Houston safety Corien Azema committed.

Two days after returning from Evanston, Azema tweeted something that wound up being prophetic: “Loved my time out at Northwestern really felt like home.” One week after that, he became a Wildcat.

Azema, who makes up for less-than-ideal size with the ability to lay the lumber, chose Northwestern over 17 other schools, including Arkansas, Duke, Indiana, Iowa State, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Stanford and Vanderbilt from the Power Five.

Three-star wide receiver Bryce Kirtz called his May official visit to Northwestern "a perfect 10," so it was no surprise when he became a Wildcat a few weeks later.

"It was a great visit," said Kirtz, whose visit to NU was his first official. "I got a better relationship with the coaches and the facilities are just amazing. I can't believe I'd be practicing there all the years I'll be there."

The speedy slot wide receiver chose Northwestern over longtime finalists Duke, Indiana and Purdue, as well as a late offer from Notre Dame.

Michael Jansey Jr. had what he thought was a perfect commitment experience.

He received his offer from Northwestern on May 31 but committed on Saturday, when his Batavia (Ill.) team was at the Ryan Fieldhouse for Northwestern's annual Chicagoland Showcase Camp.

"I'm so excited," said Jansey via direct message shortly after committing. "I committed with my coaches and teammates."

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Jansey chose Northwestern over 20 other offers, including Iowa State, Missouri, Purdue and West Virginia from the Power Five.

Talk about a stroke of luck.

Northwestern was never really in the hunt to land five-star quarterback Hunter Johnson in 2017, even if he did visit the school once. But when he decided to transfer from Clemson after his freshman year, the Wildcats snapped him up. (It didn't hurt that his older brother, Cole Johnson, had been a walkon at NU and had a great experience.)

Johnson is not in the 2019 class, of course, but his addition couldn't have at a better time for Northwestern, which has to replace four-year starter Clayton Thorson next season and had missed on several top-tier QB prospects in recent classes.

Johnson sat out the 2018 season but will be play next season and has three years of eligibility left.

Wayne Dennis was intent on taking all five of his allotted official visits. Then he visited Northwestern and his plans rapidly changed.

Just two days after returning from an official visit he called "great," the then unranked wide receiver talked things over with his parents and announced on Twitter that he had committed to the Wildcats.

A big, physical receiver, Dennis has since picked up a three-star ranking from Rivals, even though Northwestern was his only Power Five offer.

No one saw Zachary Franks' commitment coming. After all, Northwestern isn't supposed to flip commitments from Penn State; it's supposed to happen the other way around.

Eight days after Franks committed to the Nittany Lions, he decommitted and pledged Northwestern, setting off a Twitter firestorm.

Franks was one of three tackles to take an official visit to NU in June, telling WildcatReport afterward, "It was great! The best visit I ever had." It was good enough to put Northwestern in front of nine other schools he visited over the summer, including Maryland, Duke, Virginia, Boston College, Nebraska, Vanderbilt, Indiana and Ole Miss.

He chose Northwestern over 29 other schools in all.

Give Genson Hooper credit: he has impeccable timing.

The 6-foot-5 wide receiver from Houston chose Northwestern over Notre Dame just four days before the Wildcats took on the Irish at Ryan Field. So even if Northwestern lost the game to No. 3 Notre Dame on Saturday, the Wildcats could claim a recruiting victory that week.

Hooper was another summer official visitor, taking his trip to Evanston in June. A Top 100 receiver, Hooper chose NU over an impressive offer list that included the aforementioned Notre Dame, Florida, Michigan State, Ole Miss and Nebraska.

Northwestern landed the last two early signees on the same day, last Saturday. Serendipity played a role in both players' commitments, as decisions made by other people set off events that made them both Wildcats.

Safety Brandon Joseph was a Texas Tech commit until the Red Raiders fired Kliff Kingsbury on Nov. 25. Northwestern was one of the first schools to contact him, coaches ran down to Texas to visit him, and Joseph became a Wildcat on the same day he decommitted from Tech, on Dec. 8. However, Joseph didn't announce his commitment until one week later, when he was in Evanston for an unofficial visit. (He had taken his official to NU in June.) Joseph chose NU over Utah and Wake Forest the second time around.

For wide receiver Malik Washington, it was Northwestern's Charlie Fessler who made a decision that helped make him a Wildcat. Washington had been high on Northwestern initially, when the Wildcats were recruiting him as a safety. But then he decided that he wanted to play receiver at the next level, and his interest cooled. When Fessler announced that he was going to transfer, that opened up a wide receiver scholarship, and Washington's dream came to fruition. He quickly arranged an official visit over the weekend and took the plunge on Saturday, picking Northwestern over finalists Michigan State and Tennessee.