D III, baseball at least, has no signing. It's normally called "commitment", because the players commit to going to a particular school, but no binding contract, written or ****. Son #2 was offered a "guaranteed" spot on the roster in the fall, orally of course, but that's as committed as it gets. When other schools called after my son "committed", coaches took that the same as a written commitment and ended their pursuit.
p.s. didn't know that o*r*a*l* was a bad word; we'll go with "verbal" next time.