Article here.
Pelini thinks high school players should be able to sign with teams as soon as they receive scholarship offers.
I happen to agree with him. Thoughts?
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
I don't think players should be allowed to sign BINDING letters of intent until October 1 of their senior year. Saying that a kid can sign as soon as he's offered opens the door for those 12 year old kids to sign. They don't know what they are doing or what they want. It's a mess waiting to happen. Kids really gain attention their Junior year so allow them to start signing during their Senior year. Don't make them wait until February. If you say that kids can sign earlier, they have to be non-binding until a certain date so the school can't have a stranglehold on a kid for several years, at which point how is signing any different than a verbal commitment.
It would mean schools would be fighting to get be the first one to make an offer.
They'd start tossing scholarships around at kids in 8th grade then find a way to get around it when they kid decides he doesn't like football or plateau at 14 years old.
Unfortunately the best way to do this is to set a date late enough so everyone can see the kid playing in his senior year at HS, that he stays in HS until he graduates HS and is mature enough for college and that they are mature enough to make the decision and has all the time they need to examine schools, coaches and their own realistic desires and aspirations.
For the schools and the fans, we/they may want all kinds of other arrangements but, you need to place the student in the driver's seat here. It's their life, everyone else needs to just wait and keep the student/athlete's best interests forefront.
Don't allow them to get in the contract too early and protect the student.
Like Frank Beamer said ," an early signing period would be great".
Quick! Offer the next Fuller fetus!
Should it wait until they are 18 or National signing day if they are not 18 at that time?
an early signing period would be good, but having the kid sign right then and there would have some major drawbacks. i couldnt imagine the pressure coaches would put on kids to do so.
I think the issue is that if an athlete is offered a scholarship, the coach should not be able to revoke it (except for academic reasons or issues with the law).
That, and if the kids offer is actually commitable or not is something that needs to be cleaned up. I'm just not sure how they can police that.
I disagree. As long as a recruit can back out of a commitment, a coach should be able to back out of an offer. If you want to eliminate the ability for a coach to pull an offer, then we should also eliminate the ability of the recruit to flip a commitment at the last minute. Once the offer is made, its made. Once a commit happens, its over. And if you want to back out of either, make em jump through hoops.
I think the middle ground here is just sensible regulations on both sides:
For coaches:
1. Committable offers only.
2. No offers before junior year of HS.
3. No pulling scholarships unless academic or legal problems arise.
For athletes:
1. No backing out of a commitment unless (1) head or position coach changes or (2) NCAA sanctions on the program.
I think HOAT had a great synopsis of several protections that could be put into place. Not sure which thread that was, a few months ago...
Makes too much sense, it won't happen.
Got to say though, as simple as that looks, it should really be that simple and to the point.
Thanks. I think it was just a list of things that the two sides should be allowed to do with respect to the fact that things can change between signing the LOI and actually attending. A non-exhaustive list for sure.
Note: Found it
No offers until Junior year is a great idea. I would take it a step further and say no communication with coaches until the end of sophomore year. There should not be a 2+ year "courtship" process that coaches have to perform before a player signs.
Well, the idea is that we get rid of the 'commitment' and just let the player sign is LOI whenever he wants. If we assume the LOI is binding for both sides (ignoring unique circumstances) then the coach and player are on even terms. Seems like you and Bo agree?
I was about to post the next two paragraphs as a response to another post above and read on and found that we're thinking somewhat along the same lines so decided to put it here instead.
There's actually a pretty simple solution to many of the problems that come with offering/signing prospects really early: Make the commitments binding on the schools scholarship limits, so long as the prospect doesn't have a career ending injury. If the prospect doesn't pan out as expected and finishes high school as a 2 star prospect, the college still has to honor their scholarship offer. If the prospect does something stupid and ends up going to jail instead of enrolling in college, then the school is one scholarship short for that class. This would presumably force colleges to be more cautious in making "commitable offers" to prospect really early in the process. This could also create a more balanced playing field as less successful schools would have incentives to take risks on prospects early, while schools with already successful programs would have incentives to make sure they aren't wasting a scholarship on a player that won't play or could end up not making it to campus.
It admittedly wouldn't solve every problem, like kids making poor choices and wanting to reconsider. This would be partially controlled for by existing law, since minors can't enter into contracts; prospects under 18 can't currently sign without a parent or guardian also signing, so they won't be able to make a rash decision without parental input and approval. This issue can be further addressed by loosening transfer regulations as is already being discussed. Possibly something like allowing them a one time exception to transfer and play immediately for a school that is out of conference/not a future opponent (places they normally wouldn't be able to transfer to at all) or to play immediately at any school after they have graduated from the school they originally signed with. If they want to transfer to a school in conference or to a future opponent before they graduate, they would have to sit out a season.
The main difference is that I would have career ending injuries as the primary reason that schools can get out of a prospect counting against their scholarship limit. I want the schools to have incentives not to offer too early and I think that things like the potential for academic and/or legal trouble should be things they have to weigh before making an offer comittable. You could maybe balance this by granting exceptions for prospects that sign later in the process to give further incentive to the schools to avoid making commitable offers early. The other difference is that I have signed prospects binding against the scholarship limit but not necessarily the scholarship itself so that if a prospect does go out and do something horrible and then they get off with a slap on the wrist the school can still choose not to associate themselves with the student any further, but they would still loose the scholarship.
I would also add VTGutarMan's caveats about coaching changes (Head coach, coordinator, or position coach in my case) and NCAA Sanctions.