verbal or signed

I see a lot about verbally committing to a school. Is this though the regular college admissions or is this a formal invite from the school? And if one can change their mind does it hold that much weight?

 

Verbal commitments are not binding. It is a coach's promise and a recruit's word that they will marry. Just like a marriage, it can be called off by either party until the signed commitment signatures have dried.

a sidenote- In the college baseball community, this rarely happens, but with the increased early, early commitments, I believe you will see more of it.

 

I guess that is what I was looking for. I feel that it is great that any school would want a player. And that player gets the chance. But, to give your word on something that is down the road for the most part and is not pretty solid takes away from it I think.

 

Seniors can't actually sign until November, so any changes of heart will be apparent at that time.

 

Verbal commitments get broken a lot in football and more frequently by the player. the player locks up a deal and then when a sweeter deal comes along, or the kid just made a premature decision, he then changes his mind. Verbals are non-binding by either party.

 

That is good info. I guess I wondering why (do not get me wrong here). It would seem to be more important that a player has commited to a school than verbally. I am not taking anything from the players. It just seem that it would be more of a event if it were more of a firm thing.

 

Here is how it works

Schools are recruiting you. They make an offer. You can accept the offer or you can decide to wait. If they make an offer and you want to go there you verbally committ to the school. The school is saying we want you and you are saying you want to come. You can not sign untill November. But its your word that you are going to come to their school and its their word to you that they will honor their offer to you. So now the school knows they have their 3b and they do not need to continue to recruit that posistion etc etc. The player calls the other coaches recruiting him and tells them he has decided to attend X university. The schools can move on to the next guy on their list.

Now think about what would happen if the verbal committ did not exist. How would coaches recruit? How would they know who was and who was not coming? Do we continue to recruit 3b what if the kid does not sign? It would be impossible for schools to recruit if it were not for verbals. And trust me the recruiting process is stressfull enough on these kids as it is. What are they supposed to do wait untill Nov to see who calls with an offer on signing day?

The verbal is the way it has always been done. Now verbals are coming earlier and earlier but that is because some schools are going after kids much earlier which is forcing the hand of some other schools who dont want to miss out. A verbal is your word. The offer that caused you to verbal is the schools word. You can count on one hand the amount of baseball verbals that have been broken either by the schools or players. Usually there are some circumstances behind the scenes that take place that others are not aware of. Grades fall off , kid gets in some kind of off the field trouble , etc etc.

 

Coach 27, I agree the verbal system works well for both parties. But you're seeing more verbals broken on the football side and mostly from the player. After talking with many college FB coaches, once they get offers out they let kids know they have so many offers out and so many spots. After those posts are filled the offer may not be there. FB programs can't take 6 WR's and only 2 O-linemen (I think Amato tried this).

And then you have the internet rumors of "silent verbals".

 

Understanding that. I was just wondering why one would verbally commit or a school would offer a kid this early knowing that all kinds of things can happen before they could sign. As you say schools are offering earlier then would this not start leading to more changing thier mind later? It would seem they would wait a little closer to the sign date not a year or so away.

 

How would anyone know

what was going on if their was no verbal system in place? Who is coming coach Smith? I have no idea? Did we fill the need at 2b? I have no idea? When are we going to find out? I have no idea? What do you know? We should have gotten some verbals. That sounds like a good idea. We tell the kid we want him and we tell him what the offer is. He tells us yes or no and then we know who to go after or who to not go after. Man I wish I would have thought about that. Me too.