Just saw a Twitter post from a 2020 HS sophomore saying that he has received a full scholarship to Univ. of Michigan to play football. How is that possible? I thought they couldn’t be admitted or commit until they were seniors…
Also, how will this affect his likelihood of playing in HS? Seems like he’d be risking injury and potentially losing the scholarship…
Nothing is binding on either end until the papers are signed senior year. I’d imagine the scholarship offer would be withdrawn if the player doesn’t continue to play, progress, and meet NCAA required academic standards in HS. Here is a sillier story about a 9 year old offered a college scholarship (I’m guessing there are others like this). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4636664/Nine-year-old-offered-college-football-scholarship.html
This is nothing new, every year there are kids in 8th or 9th grade that are “offered” by football and basketball programs. There is really no downside for either the student or the school as it is non-binding until the NLI is signed as a senior.
The athlete gains more notoriety by having a top program offer them early and the school gets in line first for someone they obviously think will be a blue chip recruit. The fact that either side can walk away if things don’t pan out makes this just a social media event more than anything else.
There IS a downside, and that is that other schools may not recruit this student and that the student may not keep and open mind, thinking “I’m going to Michigan.”
@twoinanddone I think all of the college coaches understand the process and would not be deterred from recruiting a student athlete they want in their program. Commitments do change right up to signing day.
And there is no honor among thieves. My daughter was called (and pestered) by D3 coaches even after she’d signed an NLI. But a friend committed to Air Force young (sophomore year) and many other schools backed off. He changed his mind and didn’t have nearly as many offers from other top teams and not nearly as much money as he could have gotten if he’d focused on ALL schools his sophomore and junior years. He didn’t commit until Feb of senior year and a lot of teams were full and the money gone.
High school sophomores committing is unfortunately not new in big time football recruiting. Occasionally freshmen will commit as well. A lot of these kids will flip their commitment between now and signing day during their senior year for one reason or another. I have said before that my son played with an absolute top of the heap recruit who first committed early spring sophomore year and then flipped during his junior summer. He was being recruited very hard by everyone in the country right up until signing day in February. Football recruiting is a really unstable world, at least through the junior season and then the summer camp circuit that follows the junior year. For that reason, I personally don’t pay a lot of attention to football commits until the late spring-ish prior to a recruit’s senior year.
Couple this instability to the fact that Harbaugh is well known for throwing out a ton of early offers (247 shows 98 offers currently by Michigan in the class of 2020) and then “shuffling the deck”, which is a nice way of saying that he will force some early commits out if he lands higher profile guys, and I personally would not be getting fat and happy with a Michigan commit two years out.
Quite honestly, I don’t think that recruiting at that level slows down at all because of an early commitment. Some believe that it actually speeds up recruiting, because the kid will inevitably be rated more favorably by the various recruiting services given the commitment. Personally, I very much doubt that guys like Saban, Meyer, Sweeney et al pay the slightest attention to recruiting sites, but there are those who do.
As far as the OP’s question about the commit playing the next two high school seasons, he certainly might get his scholly pulled if he gets hurt. Most coaches will honor a scholarship offer to a kid who is legitimately injured playing high school ball, because if it gets around that they are dinging kids who get hurt, and given the media spotlight on football recruiting it will get around, then they are going to have a ton of difficulty attracting the kind of talent they are looking for. Why commit to Michigan where you may get your scholly pulled if you blow out a knee, when you can commit to Mark Diantonio at Michigan State who has a great reputation for not dumping kids unless the kids themselves are out there actively soliciting other schools? Know what I mean?
FWIW, kids who get injured n high school or in college for that matter get what we used to call “medicalled”. That means that you retain your scholarship and remain part of the team but are not medically cleared for NCAA competition and therefore are not a counter for scholarship purposes. Again though, Harbaugh’s reputation in this area is not great.
I just watched the “All or Nothing” series on Harbaugh yesterday. He’s strange.
I did very much enjoy the coach in the booth (quarterback coach? offensive coordinator?). He is totally calm and happy throughout. I’d like him as my coach.
We happen to know this kid. He also has offers from quite a few other big name schools and at least one Ivy football programs. My understanding is that in football it is common to announce all the offers instead of waiting and just announcing the one verbal commitment.