Recruiting 101: The commitment

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MORE RECRUITING 101: The calendar | The offer

Recruiting is known as the “lifeblood” of a college football program, but the complexity of the process can be confusing for prospects and college football fans alike. In our Recruiting 101 series, we will look to clarify some basic topics and explain more advanced topics about college football recruiting, while also answering those questions you have been afraid to ask. This week’s topic is about the commitment.

The commitment is the consummation of the recruiting process. It occurs when the opportunity being offered by a university is accepted by a prospective student-athlete (PSA). In previous articles we have specified that the following discussion only covers the Football Bowl Subdivision level, but the commitment is pretty standard at all levels of college football, and even other college sports.

When the word “commitment” is used in recruiting, it almost always refers to a verbal commitment from a PSA to a school. The first thing you should know about a verbal commitment is that it is non-binding. The NCAA does not recognize it. There is no official penalty for rescinding a commitment on the PSA’s part, and there is no official penalty for declining a commitment on the college’s part.

While the commitment does not receive any official recognition from the NCAA, it does hold value for both colleges and PSAs. For the college, commitments give the coaching staff a fairly accurate picture of which prospects they are likely to sign and how they’re meeting their needs in that class. It can also further that school’s brand and create positive publicity for the football program.

For the PSA, committing to a school may not obligate that school to sign you, but it does make it more difficult for the school to drop you before you sign. Once a public commitment is made, the publicity of “dropping” a prospect who has committed can create a negative perception of your program. Repercussions could include future prospects withholding their commitments to your institution if they feel they may get dropped later in the process.

The trend of decommitments in college football is certainly increasing, with the primary culprit being the recruiting process starting earlier and encouraging commitments at younger ages. During the course of the 2019 class, there were over 300 de-commitments from Power Five Conference programs.

In most cases decommitments are PSA-initiated, but in some cases it is the school doing the breaking up. Since schools cannot comment on PSAs until they sign a letter of intent, some de-commitments that are announced by the recruit were actually initiated by the coaches, so school-initiated decommitments are more frequent than they are perceived. The reasons why a school might encourage a prospect to decommit range from a PSA not progressing as expected to simply finding another prospect the coaches want more for that scholarship spot. The reasons for PSA-initiated decommitments are as varied as the individuals who make that decision.

The repercussions for PSAs who decommit are not overly pronounced. The biggest deterrence to a PSA decommitting is that individual not wanting to go back on his word. Schools that were recruiting that PSA previously are unlikely to stop recruiting him if he decommits from another program, however, and more often than not additional schools start to recruit that individual once they know he is “open” again.

A “silent verbal” is a commitment given to a program that a PSA does not publicize. The college never publicizes a commitment (generic announcements from coaches, like Penn State’s James Franklin tweeting “#WeAre…Better,” after a commitment are common, but never specifically reference who committed) because it cannot publicly comment on any PSA before he signs, but PSAs almost always publicize their commitment soon after making it. The exception is the silent verbal.

There are several reasons why a silent verbal may take place. One reason is the school asking the PSA to keep his commitment quiet, possibly so they do not scare off other prospects they are recruiting at that position. Another reason is the PSA wanting to announce his decision at a later time, maybe at a future event or in conjunction with a meaningful date.

Keeping commitments silent is now happening even with prospects who sign letters of intent. There were several examples in the 2019 class, including five-stars Bru McCoy and Jaden Haselwood who signed in the Early Signing Period but wanted to announce their decisions at one of the all-star games in January. Even though the school received their letters of intent and could talk about them publicly, those programs agreed not to publicize those signings until after they announced at the All-American Bowl several weeks later.

The National Letter of Intent (NLI) is a form of commitment, but one that is binding and recognized by the NCAA. At the FBS level, an NLI can only be signed during one of the two signing periods that occur in a PSA’s senior year. By signing an NLI, the PSA agrees to attend that college for one year, and the college agrees to provide athletic financial aid for that year.

Another form of commitment is signing a financial-aid agreement or grant-in-aid. Within the last decade, the NCAA released an interpretation of its rules concerning the offering of a financial-aid agreement to PSAs. Member institutions had been allowed to offer financial-aid agreements to prospects after Aug. 1 of their senior year, but they could not permit a PSA to sign a form accepting that athletically related grant-in-aid.

Under the updated interpretation, which came about five years ago, PSAs who will be mid-year enrollees are now allowed to sign a financial-aid agreement with colleges after Aug. 1 of their senior year. One of the most publicized early acceptances of a financial-aid agreement was five-star quarterback Trevor Lawrence signing grant-in-aid with Clemson on Aug. 3, 2017.

Early offers of financial aid, however, are still lightly used in recruiting because the benefit is skewed heavily toward the PSA. Signing a financial aid agreement does not obligate a PSA to attend that school, and they can sign multiple financial-aid agreements with multiple institutions. The school, however, is required to uphold its end of the bargain and honor the scholarship of a PSA who signs a financial-aid agreement if they choose to attend their school.

Hopefully you learned more about the commitment and had some of your questions answered in this Recruiting 101 lesson, but remember you can also ask specific questions that may be answered directly in a future edition of the series. Send those questions via Twitter to @JoshHelmholdt, and look for another edition of Recruiting 101 on April 11.