What to make of players taking official visits after a hard commitment
By Ethan Levine
Published:
There’s one golden rule that players, coaches and fans all must remember when studying modern-day recruiting in the world of college football:
Nothing is official until pen meets paper.
Even when a player make a “hard commitment” to a school, it’s not as hard as it seems. After all, these are teenagers we are talking about, and although their abilities hint that they could one day be world-class athletes, they’re still just kids trying to find the right path toward their desired futures.
These recruits are still gaining real-world experience and are still learning as much about themselves as they are about the schools pursuing them. They’re entitled to use every second until they sign their letters of intent to continue weighing their options, and it’s far from illegal or immoral for them to change their minds regarding their commitments along the way.
So what does it mean when a player committed to one school schedules visits to other programs after the fact? It can actually mean a lot.
In some cases, the player is simply aiming to be thorough in his approach to the recruitment process. Even if he’s confident in his commitment, there’s no better way to cement that confidence than to check out the competition and make sure once and for all that it doesn’t stack up.
Other times, a player’s confidence in his commitment has begun to wane when he schedules official visits elsewhere in the final weeks before National Signing Day. Players might commit a year or two before the end of their high school careers, and in that time college programs can change coaches, gain or lose talent, or even change conferences in the modern era of college athletics.
For example, current four-star prospect Terry Godwin committed to Georgia a year ago, but he still has official visits to Alabama, Auburn and Texas A&M scheduled in the coming weeks.
Auburn and A&M have both undergone changes to their coaching staffs this offseason, and those coaching changes might have inspired these visits, or they might not have. Either way, it’s been a long time since Godwin committed to Georgia and a lot has changed throughout the SEC to make these additional visits worth his while, even if they’re just to reassure him he’s making the right call by heading to Athens.
It’s also worth noting that when a player commits to a school, other schools do all they can to illegitimatize that first school to get a prospect to flip his commitment. Sometimes this is nothing more than white noise in the ear of a recruit, but other times it can make all the difference.
So even after a player has committed, remember that it means nothing until pen hits paper. At the end of the day, that’s all that counts.
A former newspaper reporter who has roamed the southeastern United States for years covering football and eating way too many barbecue ribs, if there is such a thing.
