Legal & Practical Aspects of Recruiting
I'm relatively new to the boards and have only recently gotten sucked into the world of college football recruiting. As a result, I have some very simple questions that I'm helping the board can help me out with. I've tried searching on the internet, but thus far I haven't found a page that answers my questions. I'm hoping the folks here could either:
1) Post links that answer my questions; or
2) Kindly answer my questions directly here.
I also don't think my quesitons necessarily pertain to over-signing, as my questions are assuming that the school is ethical and is trying to play by the normal rules. I'm asking what most schools should/could/actually do under the following circumstances:
Here goes...
For obvious reasons, programs map out what their needs & goals are for a particular recruiting class. And for obvious reasons teams send out more offers than actual slots available. Some schools strategize and perhaps pursue a ton of kids but will have less time to spend on each one. Other schools cast their nets not as wide but try to shower a smaller number with more attention and TLC. But ultimately, schools are sending out more offers than they have slots on the team.
1) What happens when those slots get occupied (at least preliminarily) by verbal committments, particularly at a faster or greater matriculation rate than anticipated?
Example: Team X wants to take 2-3 offensive linemen in a class. They give offers to 25, sensibly thinking that they won't get them all. But what happens if in a matter of a week or two, some number much higher than 2-3 decide to committ? I could see one extra OL sliding in there no big deal. But if you're trying to be as efficient as possible, especially with a small recruiting class, you don't want to have 4 or 5 OLs on board when you really wanted 2-3. Does this ever happen? Or are the teams much more on top of the current state of affairs? Do the kids self police and eyeball each other such that highly ranked guys won't enter a school's recruiting class if it's perceived that the class will be too stacked at that position in that class? Or is it first come first served? Schools give 25 offers, but tell each kid 'we are only taking 2-3 so wait at your own risk'? Can a school revoke the offers once a class gets it's desired quota filled for that position?
Which brings me to.....
2) What happens if a somewhat less desireable target to fill a needed position verbally committs when there is a more highly desired target that is still uncommitted for that same position?
Example: The class only has room for 3 O-Linemen. Five star OT Bob is given an offer but keeps it cool and doesn't commit right away becasue a ton of other options. Three star OT Joe is given an offer one month later and takes about a nanosecond to commit because he's just happy to be there. Is Bob out of luck? Is the team obligated to take Joe, and if they want Bob do they need to "find room" by not taking a WR or CB in that same class? And even so, once the class fills up towards the end of the year, even if a team WANTED to just forego getting a WR or CB that year and take Bob, if things get jam packed, the team would basically have to turn away Bob in favor of Joe at that point, no? Or do we now get into the murky world of over-signing & having coaches tell a kid "look, you can sign your LOI and block Bob from coming here, but if you do, you won't see a minute of playing time so you may as well look for another home"? Or do certain schools just make damned sure that if they only have one slot for a certain position type, that every single offer they send out, they are OK and at peace with the fact that any given kid could accept the offer, shut down the rest of the position group from that class, even if the rest of the position group has more highly coveted players?
Thank you in advance.
and I'll take a stab at your first question the best I can. A verbal offer of a scholarship really doesn't officially mean a whole lot. The things that will matter are the National Letter of Intent (NLI), the aid agreement and/or scholarship agreement. When you hear of a recruit sending in an NLI, it originally was faxed/e-mailed to them by the school that wants them. So maybe University X "verbally offers" 10 OL and all 10 accept, but if they only want 3, they'll send those 3 the NLI to sign.
This could all very well be wrong, but here's my source: LINK
Yes, but in actuality, samdruss' point is also true. The University will keep the 10 offered Offense Linemen informed of the situation -- i.e. that we are only taking 3. When 2 commit, they'll touch base with the ones they really want the most and tell them "there's only 1 spot left".
While it may seem like we offer a ton of kids, a lot of those offers are made to the super-elite recruits that we offer just in hopes of getting them to visit campus. So, while we may have 10 offers out to OL recruits, the coaches may expect only 3-4 to really be "considering" Michigan. So, while Michigan offers 100+ recruits a year, those aren't all happening at the same time. Some offers go out to top recruits to convince them to visit, then as recruits start to drop off our interest list, more go out, and the cycle continues.
Offers can become non-committable. If Michigan is only going to take 3 linemen, when they get 3 linemen the coaching staff can tell players they can't commit.
I think we've heard reports that the Michigan staff has said that. We recruit two (or more) kids for one position and see who commits first. Most recently, our QB and TE.
still give out much higher numbers of offers than spaces, but are open with the recruits that "we are only taking X DTs this year - first come - first served". This leads to rare occurences like 2-3 years ago when we had 5 OL commit in a very short span because we only had 5 spaces and once a few were filled the prospects had better verbally commit or lose their spot. Due to the limited spots like the past 2 M classes, Coaches tend to only offer top-tier kids early or kids they believe will take their time. Case this year was with A. Malzone. It was pretty clear that he would jump at an M offer as soon as it came so they slow-played him a bit and looked closely at the other options before deciding to extend an offer.
As a result of the above - you see the "no visits" rules for verbal M commits ala S. Crawford. Once a recruit re-opens his options - M opens the spot and it is again first-come/first-served.
As for question #2 - for an ethical program you either slow-play the lower-ranked kids (lower ranked by the coaches not the services) and wait to offer or risk turning away a better player. Often in a larger class a spot or 2 will be set aside for the "best player available" just in case a D Hand or J. Peppers decides late.
Deteriorating the quality of the board. One post at a time.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
yep, if you're somebody who moves your lips when you read, anything over a sentence or two gets tiring.
totally understood how it works either, and probably never will. You're trying to stack the best team with guys who won't waver.
I think a lot of it may be trying to gauge interest from the player too. Geography counts. Obviously California kids don't come all the way to Michigan that often unless they're really sold. We offer guys from all over the country and I'd suspect you can draw a bullseye around Ann Arbor which corresponds orderly with the number of guys recruited from each area.
I can see its a game from both sides, especially for a solid middle talent, if you hold out for too long deciding then a coaching staff can decide to fill with someone else. Sort of like a game of musical chairs in some respects. Eventually the music stops.
I suppose for a top recruit (not sure how to quantify that, but a Peppers or Hand type recruit) a program would find a way to make room no matter what time of the year. They probably have to have an open scholarship at most times just in case "lightning strikes".
Michigan is sort of at a crossroads in my opinion. Can we return to blue chip status by being lights out against most opponents, I think the coaches jobs will get easier. If the struggles continue, I think it will continue to get harder.
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August 27th, 2014 at 11:22 PM ^
It's tricky and there are a lot of gray areas, that's for sure.