Wednesday is National Signing Day for college football, and if you don’t follow college football, let me explain it to you quickly. College coaches and their assistants begin watching high school football players on film and in person starting with their freshman and sophomore years.
That’s really all you need to know. I mean, there are other elements to Signing Day (high school seniors sign a letter of intent to attend and play football at a university of their choosing). But before I completely trash this process, let me tell you how important recruiting is. Every coach from middle school on up will live and die by their win/loss record. Obviously the stakes are higher in college, where the big money is. If you recruit the very best kids to play for you, your chances of winning are higher, you send more kids to the NFL, you generate more money for the school, etc. etc.
But recruiting has become a sick spectacle for many. I can’t prove it, but I think it all starts with the two main recruiting services, Rivals and Scout. Millions of football fans pay $99 a year to read articles on which high school kid is going where. Writers from the two web sites call these high school kids (who are still trying to make the grades to get into college) on a daily basis to find out who their favorite school is ‘right now’. They even have terms for levels of commitment – soft verbal, lean, solid, etc. Both services then rank all the players individually overall, then by position. Then they rank the schools by how well they are doing. Players are given stars, one being the lowest, five being the best, so the more five star players a school has, the better their ranking.
Sounds like the modeling industry doesn’t it?
There are several things that bother me about this whole process:
1. Kids get inflated egos. You can argue that this was happening anyway. I don’t have a problem with a kid getting a free trip to 12 schools. Quite honestly, that’s the best they will be treated while on campus (Yes, I KNOW they get a free education). But with the advent of the internet, the courting by fans, and the fact that National Signing Day is a freaking holiday in Alabama, some of the these kids can get a false sense of security from the very same fans who will boo them the first pass they drop. Many recruits absolutely eat up the limelight. They change their minds privately and publicly just for attention. They will toy with the emotions of those who desire them. Why? Because they can.
2. Adults fawning over boys age 16-18 years old. This is the sick part to me. Pick any name on either Rivals or Scout and then look them up on Youtube. Now read the comments that follow. “Dude, he’s a BEAST”, “What a great looking athlete”, “Can’t wait to see that chiseled frame taking on linebackers this fall”, “He’s a freak of nature”….and so on and so on. I don’t care how big they are, they are KIDS.
3. Rivals and Scout have become WAY too powerful. I don’t know that they have as much influence on coaches, but they do on the recruits themselves. Trust me, corruption is sure to follow. If the kids don’t talk to reporters much or commit early, I guarantee that they are not going to be ranked high, so Rivals and Scout have pretty much insured that they get responses from all relevant recruits. Pretty soon they will have a group that offers “advice” to recruits. Translation = Lobbyist. You think there will be any chance of improprieties in THAT scenario?
Having said all of the above, I will pay attention to who UGA signs tomorrow. Because in the end, if they sign, they have committed to the Bulldogs and NOW I will begin cheering them on.
Then, for most of us, we hold our collective breath, hoping that we can keep the number of off season arrests to under ten…………….
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