NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Coach Taylor:  My son is a junior in high school and being heavily recruited by several big DI football schools (UT, Texas A&M and OU to name a few).  I know these schools are ahead of the trend in offering scholarships to younger recruits.  My question is when is the earliest time that a college coach  can offer a scholarship and when is the earliest a recruit can make a verbal commitment?

Great question!  College coaches can offer verbal scholarships at ANY time and in many sports this has even happened before a recruit enters high school.  Additionally, a verbal commitment can be made at ANY time.  However, most commonly this occurs after September 1st of junior year when college coaches are generally less restricted in the contact they are allowed with recruits. 

I always recommend contacting the school, especially if you are being heavily recruited , and ask when they would like to have their 2011 recruit class completed so you understand their timeline.  If scholarships have not been discussed, it would be a good idea to ask if your son is currently being considered or if there are any 2011 scholarships still remaining.  When you talk about programs in the class of UT and OU, they have most likely already offered scholarships to recruits in the class of 2011. 

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

To get your questions answered immediately, call 866-579-6272 to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Athletic Scholarships. 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.