Pelini wants to eliminate signing day altogether

[Irondawg]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/story/_/id/11032021/bo-pelini-nebraska-cornhuskers-suggests-ending-national-signing-day

I get what he's saying and there is some logic behind it but I think it should be a mix. I think offers shouldn't be allowed to be made until January of the year they graduate and then they should be allowed to sign any day they wish after August 1 when all the camps are done. LOI's are binding with the exception that if a head coach leaves both the school and the player can mutually agree to release a kid.

[smootness]

People get way too attached to the verbiage here. In reality, 'scholarship offer' doesn't always mean 'scholarship offer', the same way 'commitment' doesn't always mean 'commitment'.

In reality, there is no actual scholarship offer until the LOI is sent, and there is no commitment until the LOI is signed. Even if you changed the rules, the current process would still exist. Kids would state their intentions, coaches would still tell a kid they want them. Unless you completely eliminate all possible contact, the same process will still be in place.

And a kid doesn't have to sign on signing day. In fact, they don't have to sign a LOI at all as things currently stand. If Pelini wants kids to be able to sign whenever they want, fine, but that's not going to help the kids any more than it helps the coaches.

What happens if a coach pressures a kid into signing a LOI as a sophomore, then that kid realizes later it was a mistake, and the coach refuses to release him? You're asking 15-year-old kids to make big life decisions right then while being pressured from all sides. Yeah, that sounds like a great way to go about it.

The reality is, people will always exploit any loophole they can in any rules. The current system actually works fairly well, all things considered. If limits on number of signings has helped things, and you can still make tweaks here and there, but there is no perfect solution. I guarantee you Pelini is not just saying this out of the goodness of his heart.

[Irondawg]

Smoot -that's why I'm saying an LOI shouldn't be allowed to be sent until Aug 1 before their senior year. i think all coaches and fans would just like security in knowing a kid committed and signed vs. committed and ride the roller coaster for 7 more months. Just an August early signing period would help everyone in my opinion.

[smootness]

Smoot -that's why I'm saying an LOI shouldn't be allowed to be sent until Aug 1 before their senior year. i think all coaches and fans would just like security in knowing a kid committed and signed vs. committed and ride the roller coaster for 7 more months. Just an August early signing period would help everyone in my opinion.

It doesn't really, though. If a kid isn't 100% sure until August that he has a spot at a certain school, then he finds out he doesn't, how does that help him?

The exact same game would be played, it would just be played much closer to the time school/football starts, so there is less room for error, on both sides.

ETA: I'm stupid, I read your argument wrong. I couldn't care less what fans want, though. That should have no bearing on the rules. I can't stand that they're contemplating an early signing period based partially on what fans want.

Anyway, I don't necessarily think an early signing period helps, either. It still makes everything crazy, it's just crazy 6 months earlier; and I certainly don't think it helps coaches. It means that they have less time to truly evaluate players and see how they develop, and it results in taking chances on some guys that you might find out later you really didn't want.

If I'm a kid who signs a LOI and then I have a subpar senior year, I don't want to be locked into a school where they might not really want me anymore.

You would have to move everything up...you'd have to have visits during a kid's junior year, the kid would be pressured to make a decision even earlier, before he may have truly weighed the options, etc. I think the current system works pretty well. A kid can decide to shut the process down early if they wish, a la Staley last year. If a kid is adamant with coaches that he knows where he's going and it isn't their school, they'll stop calling.

[Jack Lambert]

It doesn't really, though. If a kid isn't 100% sure until August that he has a spot at a certain school, then he finds out he doesn't, how does that help him?

The exact same game would be played, it would just be played much closer to the time school/football starts, so there is less room for error, on both sides.

ETA: I'm stupid, I read your argument wrong. I couldn't care less what fans want, though. That should have no bearing on the rules. I can't stand that they're contemplating an early signing period based partially on what fans want.

Anyway, I don't necessarily think an early signing period helps, either. It still makes everything crazy, it's just crazy 6 months earlier; and I certainly don't think it helps coaches. It means that they have less time to truly evaluate players and see how they develop, and it results in taking chances on some guys that you might find out later you really didn't want.

If I'm a kid who signs a LOI and then I have a subpar senior year, I don't want to be locked into a school where they might not really want me anymore.

I don't think a school can officially make an offer until August of their senior year. All these verbal offers are bogus. It's just to get a kid committed when the schools don't have to be.

I think once they finish the 11th grade, the colleges should be able to offer a written offer and they should be able to sign a letter of intent.

[smootness]

I don't think a school can officially make an offer until August of their senior year. All these verbal offers are bogus. It's just to get a kid committed when the schools don't have to be.

Again, though, you're too concentrated on the verbiage. All a 'scholarship offer' is right now is a school saying, 'Hey, we want you'. And all a 'commitment' is, is a kid saying, 'Yeah, I want to go there'.

The only reason there is all this focus on it is recruiting sites. They publish 'offers' and 'commitments' and suddenly it seems like it's legit and set in stone. Again, it's all just kids saying, 'These are the schools that said they want me, and here's where I want to go right now'.

As long as people are calling HS kids and interviewing them about where they want to play in college, the exact same system will exist, regardless of the words used.

I feel like if recruiting sites used terms like 'letters' and 'desire' instead of 'offers' and 'commitments', fans would look at it differently; but it would still be the same system.

[Johnson85]

It doesn't really, though. If a kid isn't 100% sure until August that he has a spot at a certain school, then he finds out he doesn't, how does that help him?

The exact same game would be played, it would just be played much closer to the time school/football starts, so there is less room for error, on both sides.

ETA: I'm stupid, I read your argument wrong. I couldn't care less what fans want, though. That should have no bearing on the rules. I can't stand that they're contemplating an early signing period based partially on what fans want.

Anyway, I don't necessarily think an early signing period helps, either. It still makes everything crazy, it's just crazy 6 months earlier; and I certainly don't think it helps coaches. It means that they have less time to truly evaluate players and see how they develop, and it results in taking chances on some guys that you might find out later you really didn't want.

If I'm a kid who signs a LOI and then I have a subpar senior year, I don't want to be locked into a school where they might not really want me anymore.

You would have to move everything up...you'd have to have visits during a kid's junior year, the kid would be pressured to make a decision even earlier, before he may have truly weighed the options, etc. I think the current system works pretty well. A kid can decide to shut the process down early if they wish, a la Staley last year. If a kid is adamant with coaches that he knows where he's going and it isn't their school, they'll stop calling.

It's not based on what the fans want, it's based on what the coaches want. It helps coaches because it gives them a little bit of certainty with respect to their recruiting class. It helps players that want to get the process over with and avoid losing their scholarship because of an injury their senior year of high school. On the flip side it hurts coaches because it makes scouting and projections on development that much more important and basically just doubles the craziness. It potentially hurts late bloomers and also runs the risk of players that don't know enough about where to go feeling pressured to make a decision after their junior year of high school. I don't think it's a slam dunk either way, but I would like for seniors that know where they want to go to be able to go ahead and commit so that they don't have to worry about injury.

[Jack Lambert]

Again, though, you're too concentrated on the verbiage. All a 'scholarship offer' is right now is a school saying, 'Hey, we want you'. And all a 'commitment' is, is a kid saying, 'Yeah, I want to go there'.

The only reason there is all this focus on it is recruiting sites. They publish 'offers' and 'commitments' and suddenly it seems like it's legit and set in stone. Again, it's all just kids saying, 'These are the schools that said they want me, and here's where I want to go right now'.

As long as people are calling HS kids and interviewing them about where they want to play in college, the exact same system will exist, regardless of the words used.

I feel like if recruiting sites used terms like 'letters' and 'desire' instead of 'offers' and 'commitments', fans would look at it differently; but it would still be the same system.

I agree with what you say. The NCAA only recognize the written offer and I think these kids should understand that so when they have a verbal offer but the written never comes their feelings don’t get hurt. I personally think it sours the process. Like I said, once the kid has officially become a senior the schools should be able to give a written offer and that kid should be able to sign. This would really take a lot of pressure off the coaching staff. I think this would help schools like State sign more 4 and 5 stars. This would keep Alabama from having 50 verbal offers out there and keep them from hanging a carrot on a stick in front of all these three and four stars. They would sign their 25 and the other three and four would be out there for the picking.

[smootness]

I agree with what you say. The NCAA only recognize the written offer and I think these kids should understand that so when they have a verbal offer but the written never comes their feelings don’t get hurt. I personally think it sours the process. Like I said, once the kid has officially become a senior the schools should be able to give a written offer and that kid should be able to sign. This would really take a lot of pressure off the coaching staff. I think this would help schools like State sign more 4 and 5 stars. This would keep Alabama from having 50 verbal offers out there and keep them from hanging a carrot on a stick in front of all these three and four stars. They would sign their 25 and the other three and four would be out there for the picking.

I don't see how this takes pressure off coaches or helps us, though. It just makes the pressure more intense earlier and gives you an extra signing day to worry about. Now coaches don't have much pressure in recruiting in August. They would feel more pressure earlier to lock up the guys they thought they could, and it would put more pressure on kids earlier, too.

I just don't see how an early signing period truly helps the kids. Like I said, anyone who wants to shut down the recruiting process can, and i don't think signing a LOI early really helps the kid who gets injured. If a school doesn't want me anymore, I don't want to go there. I won't get a fair shake and will probably be out of my scholarship after the first year anyway. Sure, I'd love for me to keep my scholarship if I got hurt, but only if the school truly wants me. Forcing one side or the other into an agreement they don't want isn't going to help anything in the long run.