NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

 Rivals.com is reporting some interesting news coming from Ty Willingham and the University of Washington.  It appears that Football recruiting is following the same trend as basketball and slowly handing more and more underclassmen oral scholarship offers.  Rules state that an offer can’t come in writing until the first day of a prospect’s junior year, but that hasn’t stopped coaches. 

“I know what’s happening in our state, a lot of the schools from out of the state, colleges from out of state, are coming in and just offering all kinds of sophomores,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. “We really haven’t gotten to know them as well, and it puts a little bit of heat on us being the home school and all that, so it’s put a little bit of all of a sudden now you’re trying to find out more about that (2010) guy or (2011) guy. I’m hoping we don’t get into the eighth and ninth grade deal, but everything in this world is getting faster.”

Coach Willingham already realizes that the day has arrived.  He just offered a scholarship to 2011 grad Kasen Williams.

“It’s coming,” Willingham said. “I offered my first freshman a couple weeks ago, so it’s coming.”

While many see the same pattern emerging as college basketball, there is one huge difference.  In football it is commonplace to offer far more players than you have slots for.  Basketball coaches typically honor a verbal commitment, but will football coaches hold the same line?  What if a player blows out a knee?  What if he becomes lazy and out of shape once he has received an offer?  What if he just doesn’t develop the way a coach predicted? Will a football coach still honor their word and present a recruit with a written offer when junior year roll around?

The fallout from these moves will force recruits to adapt. The upside is it may allow Division II and III recruits an opportunity to receive attention before their senior year.  With Division I recruits identified at an earlier age, other divisions will be able realistically identify talent that fits their school. This will allow recruits of all ability to pro-actively contact schools well before their senior year and in turn receive serious attention and offers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am and is filed under Athletic Scholarships, College Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.