I was surprised at how many football players signed today in the new early signing period. My college added about 15 new players (some are juco transfers). I didn’t think there would be that many.
It is and will become THE signing day. I believe around 90% of the top 300 signed today. Colleges want to know you are committed to going their and they want to set their classes. It will also allow more kids to do early enrollment when possible. Kids that don’t sign are in a precarious position now. Top 300 no problem but everyone else will have 2 things occur. Either the school they are considering now has their spot filled or to counter they can now target schools where their position is still a priority. Imo risky to wait going forward.
I pretty much agree with @moscott. For the most part, this window will be where the action is, as we saw yesterday with the truly elite programs bringing in well over half their classes in most cases. I maybe disagree that the ESPN top 300 kids can set their timetable. Maybe the true five stars, the top 40-50 kids in the country, can continue to do so. But for everyone else, the game remains the same. It is just the schools they are considering are different. My son graduated with one five star kid and three four star kids. All were ESPN top 300 recruits and all are now at elite, national championship level programs. The five star kid could have gone anywhere, at any time. He first committed to a elite program as a sophomore, and then flipped to a different one in junior spring. The other three though were in much the same boat as my son and his other teammates who eventually went D1, with one flipping his commitment a day or two before signing date when a more favored school had a scholly come open because they lost a kid to someone else. It is just that the coaches they were dealing with were named Saban and Harbaugh rather than Teevins and Surace, and 247 cared a lot more about the color of the t shirt they were wearing in a twitter photo, lol.
I think what we will see eventually is that the P5 programs, particularly the more successful ones, will fill most of their classes in this period and the G5/FCS schools will continue to fill most of their classes in February, because a lot of those schools are waiting on the kids who lost the game of musical chairs this last week. And then D2 and D3 recruiting will continue as it does, getting a lot of their signees in February/March.
I watched the early signing video from my high school because someone posted it on Facebook (it’s the same high school Drew Brees attended). They made such a big deal out of it. I found myself wishing that they would do the same thing for kids who made it into Ivy League schools for academic achievements!
Our high school does a non-athletic signing day in May just for kids choosing what college they’re going to.
I was just surprised that early signing was so strong the first year. I thought it would be more gradual. There is a top recruit from Orlando who learned last week he wouldn’t be going to FSU. New coach, pulled the scholarship. He is planning to start college in Jan. I think he was switching to either UCF or USF.
A friend posted a video of her daughter’s ‘signing day’ for academics. It was from a school where attending any college is a big deal. They did it similar to an athletic signing day with each name being called, the college announce, and a bag of swag given.
The “admit rate” for scholly athletes in most if not all sports is quite a bit lower than the general admit rate in the Ivy. But I agree with the sentiment. Both my kids’ schools had a college day where the kids wore bling from the school they would attend. Since they went to private schools and wore uniforms, it was a pretty big thing in a different way.
I was too to be honest. But they had been pointing this way/working on an early signing period for some time before it was adopted last year. It appears that the programs were locked and loaded for this cycle to take advantage of the calendar.
Nick S didn’t seem too please. He appeared grumpy about it as he’s trying to prepare for a bowl game and this recruiting too a lot of time.
I think he’ll survive.
^Lol. Saban has made a career out of being grumpy. Best college coach of my lifetime certainly. But he doesn’t ever appear happy about it.
While I concur with @Ohiodad51 on most things I would have to disagree on this...Saban is the most accomplished coach of my time but best coach goes to Tom Osborne imo.
Nick gets his grumpy ways from Belichick.