Sunrise Mountain pitcher Tyler Davis loses scholarship offer from Arizona Wildcats

baseballhs posted:

CollegebaseballInsights posted:

collegebaseballrecruitingguide posted:

PitchingFan posted:

They are not going to have younger guys sign NLI because the NCAA would not want to deal with all the kids who wanted out of them.  I also think there would be very few guys who would actually sign them before their senior year.  Again, you are not required to sign an NLI but strongly encouraged.  I don't see how it levels the playing field. 

I also believe that if a student athlete is signing a binding agreement as a sophomore or Junior, it would hopefully make them think long and hard about their decision. Ultimately, a majority of athletes are still making their verbal committments in the summer after their Junior year, which is the right/best time for both the schools and the athletes. Early committments, in my opinion, are not as big of a problem as it appears. Yes, there are the cautionary tales each year of a handful who lose offers or whose offers are reduced, but those situations often are due to other factors at play (drafted rostered players deciding not to sign contracts, players not getting drafted that the school thought they would, etc), more than the high school player not developing as the college coach would have liked.

Seems like trying to make sense out of nonsense.  A student-athlete thinking long and hard at the age of (14 - 16) is a oxymoron.  Like Odyssey going after the golden fleece. In my humble opinion, players should be playing, competing and enjoying freshman and sophomore years of high school.  Do your research, visit some schools, etc. The summer before one's junior year, ok, let's ramp it up with some serious dialog (note, I understand this is not today's world).

Note, let's not forget How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry

 

It’s not today’s world because  the most competitive  schools have committed all their pitchers and a lot of their position players by end of summer rising junior year for the class.  Not all, but most.  The top 15 recruiting classes for 2021 have committed between 10-17 kids each.  It’s about the same through top 25.

The question is when did the explosion of verbal commits at the underclass start occuring?  (9th and 10th grade)

I believe the early commitments also are done by blue chip players and their families to leverage themselves for the best possible contract should they be a draft prospect, so there are benefits to this to a very, very small population of players.

collegebaseballrecruitingguide posted:

I believe the early commitments also are done by blue chip players and their families to leverage themselves for the best possible contract should they be a draft prospect, so there are benefits to this to a very, very small population of players.

There really isn't a correlation there. Early commits have everything to do with coaches wanting to snag kids up before other schools in their conference can. Mix in PG and the fact that you can not only see how every player stacks up but you can see the spin rate and speed of every single pitch they throw and there really isn't a reason for them not to do it. 10 years ago there was an explosion in travel ball. Everybody started their own team and started making their way down to Georgia, Fl, Nashville, etc. More travel coaches started getting connected with college coaches and sending them guys. For the longest time the Arsenal used to team up with the Diamond Nation team to form a team of elite players to send down to Georgia. Now the Arsenal sends five teams. 40 teams don't go down to Georgia anymore. 400 do. 15 year olds throw 92 now, they play up and get seen at 17u tournaments. LSU wants them before Ole Miss gets the chance. So why do kids commit early? Coaches are offering earlier because they have noting to lose. 

What I am saying PA is it takes two to tango, and parents of early commits (talking frosh year here) also have agendas. I know several who were advised by their agents to commit early for just this reason. 

I think social media has exacerbated the trend to a degree. Kids become aware of commitments and offers and this stokes anxiety and encourages early showcases, camps etc. The supply of young, motivated recruits grows as a result. As noted above, the colleges have ample incentive to strike early so there will always be demand. 

We are still early in our process ('22 grad year) but it feels 'later' than I had anticipated. Two dozen players at my son's position have already committed. 

OskiSD posted:

I think social media has exacerbated the trend to a degree. Kids become aware of commitments and offers and this stokes anxiety and encourages early showcases, camps etc. The supply of young, motivated recruits grows as a result. As noted above, the colleges have ample incentive to strike early so there will always be demand. 

We are still early in our process ('22 grad year) but it feels 'later' than I had anticipated. Two dozen players at my son's position have already committed. 

I agree that social media exacerbates the problem of early commitments. We were also surprised how early things moved along for our 2020. Ultimately, my son did not commit until the spring semester of his junior year which felt just right. He had time to visit several schools and knew what a good fit would look like. Most of the kids we know who committed early (frosh/sophomore) have experienced voluntary de-commitments due to coach changes or they discovered that the school wasn't a good fit... In one case, a senior still needs to meet the SAT/ACT admission requirement...