Tuesday marked the first day that schools could send out “official” offer letters to prospects and over the past two days Twitter has been littered with elite recruits showing off their numerous options. But when the calendar turned to August it also marked another major milestone on the recruiting calendar – the first day recruits can sign grant-in-aid agreements with the schools of their choice.
The practice, which is rarely used or discussed by major programs, was first implemented in 2013 and allows prospects to sign with the school of their choice and have unlimited contact with the coaches going forward. It also ties the school to the prospect, but doesn’t tie the prospect to the school.
The signing of the agreement also allows schools to talk about the player publicly, which for Clemson meant announcing three-star defensive tackle Josh Belk and the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect, Tigers quarterback commit Trevor Lawrence, who also tweeted a picture of himself signing Clemson's aid agreements on Wednesday night.
When the rule was initially introduced in 2013, schools were given free reign in regard to recruiting rules even if the prospect didn’t end up enrolling at the program with which they signed the agreement.
But the rule was tweaked in 2015. Now schools are given “relaxed recruiting rules” for prospects who have signed the agreement, but can still be slapped with recruiting violations if a prospect doesn’t enroll at that program.
Since the rule was implemented, LSU is the most high-profile program to be penalized publicizing a grant-in-aid agreement in which it eventually lost the prospect to another program. In 2014, three-star lineman Matt Womack signed with the Tigers, but decided against enrolling early and ended up signing with Alabama on National Signing Day in 2015.
In March of 2015, the Tigers received a two-year ban from signing early enrollee recruits to agreements and also lost 10 percent of their recruiting evaluation days for the 2016 class, according the Baton Rouge Advocate.
Players can sign the aid agreements any time between Aug. 1 and the time they enroll early at the school of their choice.
