B
Bama News
Sometimes you know things are happening, but you donāt realize the full extent until you dig into the data. It happened this week. College football recruits were committing left and right. It seemed like a lot of them were giving their verbal pledges to schools.
247Sports design and social media specialist Ted Hyman also noticed the same, tweeting at the end of April that he was swamped with requests for commitment edits and graphics.
But was it really more than normal for this time of year?
In a word? Yes. Much more than I could have imagined.
āWowww, so Iām not going crazy,ā Hyman said when I sent him the data.
As of May 6, there are 627 committed recruits in the current class of rising seniors (class of 2021). As of May 6 of last year, there were 302 committed recruits (class of 2020). As of May 6 two years ago, there were 243. As of May 6 three years ago, there were 299.
The commitments are happening so fast and so early that as of May 6, 2020, we have more committed recruits than we had in any two previous years combined.
The nationwide shutdown does seem to be the cause. The class of 2021 did not have that many more committed prospects pre-shutdown than normal years.
But since recruiting was effectively shut down on March 14, 424 prospects in the class of 2021 have committed. Compare that to 198 over the same period last year, 170 the year before, and 202 the year before that.
Keep in mind that in these eight classes. there have been no recruiting visits, either by recruits to a college campus or by coaches to high schools to see prospects in person. Schools and prospects are flying blind compared to the normal process.
Prospects are scrambling to secure spots in classes, even if they have never visited those campuses. Our analysts know of several prospects who have tried to commit to multiple schools only to be turned away before finally finding a home.
Some coaching staffs, particularly new staffs, are reluctant to take prospects site unseen because of the potential need to squeeze them out of a class could damage relationships in their states with power players and high school coaches. Many of those relationships have not yet been formed in-person due to the shutdown.
But many schools are willing to take them, even if it means having to drop them from their class later in the year. Schools are going ahead and taking prospects to whom they had issued, pre-shutdown, a ācamp offerā (an offer that isnāt actually committable until the prospect shows up at a schoolās summer camp and shows that he is as big or as athletic as advertised and works well with the schoolās staff). They will, of course, attempt to keep the recruits committed who they later confirm are good enough to play for them.
And as schools take more commitments, it creates panic in the mind of uncommitted recruits, who then call up schools trying to commit and secure a spot.
We might be heading for an epic season of decommitments in the fall.
And this isnāt purely about the numbers. In a typical year, many prospects commit in June and July after visiting schools and participating in camps. Itās entirely possible that by mid-July, the class of 2021ās committed numbers look similar to what a normal year looks like in Mid-July. After all, there are only so many scholarship spots available in a class.
The greater reason for the course correction will be the information schools normally acquire in spring and summer being instead attained in the fall. And new information means new actions being taken based on that information.
Normally, schools have in-person evaluations of prospects and verified height, weight, speed, and agility numbers at their disposal when deciding to take a commitment. This year, they do not.
Without summer camps and the spring evaluation period, there are a lot of players committed to schools who wonāt stay committed to them in the fall.
But once coaches are allowed to get back on the road and eyeball prospects in person, schools will begin dropping some of the players they took. And some schools who thought they had a hidden gem committed are going to lose out as the elite programs come offering, securing flips.
Add to that the fact that many prospects have not visited campus and will find out they actually like School A over School B once they actually get to take trips, and the recipes are all there for some fireworks in the Fall.
This, of course, assumes that visits open up again in time for prospects to be able to take multiple visits and form relationships. If the time for available visits is short, and National Signing Day remains the same date, itās quite possible that prospects elect to stick with their commitments.
But if prospects resume taking visits in the late summer of Fall as normal, we might have more flips than the Olympics.
247Sports design and social media specialist Ted Hyman also noticed the same, tweeting at the end of April that he was swamped with requests for commitment edits and graphics.
But was it really more than normal for this time of year?
In a word? Yes. Much more than I could have imagined.
āWowww, so Iām not going crazy,ā Hyman said when I sent him the data.
As of May 6, there are 627 committed recruits in the current class of rising seniors (class of 2021). As of May 6 of last year, there were 302 committed recruits (class of 2020). As of May 6 two years ago, there were 243. As of May 6 three years ago, there were 299.
The commitments are happening so fast and so early that as of May 6, 2020, we have more committed recruits than we had in any two previous years combined.
The nationwide shutdown does seem to be the cause. The class of 2021 did not have that many more committed prospects pre-shutdown than normal years.
But since recruiting was effectively shut down on March 14, 424 prospects in the class of 2021 have committed. Compare that to 198 over the same period last year, 170 the year before, and 202 the year before that.
Keep in mind that in these eight classes. there have been no recruiting visits, either by recruits to a college campus or by coaches to high schools to see prospects in person. Schools and prospects are flying blind compared to the normal process.
Prospects are scrambling to secure spots in classes, even if they have never visited those campuses. Our analysts know of several prospects who have tried to commit to multiple schools only to be turned away before finally finding a home.
Some coaching staffs, particularly new staffs, are reluctant to take prospects site unseen because of the potential need to squeeze them out of a class could damage relationships in their states with power players and high school coaches. Many of those relationships have not yet been formed in-person due to the shutdown.
But many schools are willing to take them, even if it means having to drop them from their class later in the year. Schools are going ahead and taking prospects to whom they had issued, pre-shutdown, a ācamp offerā (an offer that isnāt actually committable until the prospect shows up at a schoolās summer camp and shows that he is as big or as athletic as advertised and works well with the schoolās staff). They will, of course, attempt to keep the recruits committed who they later confirm are good enough to play for them.
And as schools take more commitments, it creates panic in the mind of uncommitted recruits, who then call up schools trying to commit and secure a spot.
We might be heading for an epic season of decommitments in the fall.
And this isnāt purely about the numbers. In a typical year, many prospects commit in June and July after visiting schools and participating in camps. Itās entirely possible that by mid-July, the class of 2021ās committed numbers look similar to what a normal year looks like in Mid-July. After all, there are only so many scholarship spots available in a class.
The greater reason for the course correction will be the information schools normally acquire in spring and summer being instead attained in the fall. And new information means new actions being taken based on that information.
Normally, schools have in-person evaluations of prospects and verified height, weight, speed, and agility numbers at their disposal when deciding to take a commitment. This year, they do not.
Without summer camps and the spring evaluation period, there are a lot of players committed to schools who wonāt stay committed to them in the fall.
But once coaches are allowed to get back on the road and eyeball prospects in person, schools will begin dropping some of the players they took. And some schools who thought they had a hidden gem committed are going to lose out as the elite programs come offering, securing flips.
Add to that the fact that many prospects have not visited campus and will find out they actually like School A over School B once they actually get to take trips, and the recipes are all there for some fireworks in the Fall.
This, of course, assumes that visits open up again in time for prospects to be able to take multiple visits and form relationships. If the time for available visits is short, and National Signing Day remains the same date, itās quite possible that prospects elect to stick with their commitments.
But if prospects resume taking visits in the late summer of Fall as normal, we might have more flips than the Olympics.
