The Syracuse football team currently has nine high school prospects verbally committed to play for the Orange next season. After a shocking upset over Louisville last weekend, those verbal promises have probably gotten a lot stronger during the last week.

On the other hand, if the Orange falls to Miami (Ohio) this weekend, those promises could become lies. A verbal commitment is not worth a whole lot. It allows coaches to know that a prospect is more than likely coming to play for them, but it also allows opposing teams to know who the competition is.

During the last five years high school, verbal commitments for football are up 500 percent, according to Scout.com national recruiting analyst Jamie Newberg. More high school athletes are finding they want to get the process over with sooner than later. This has led many coaches and experts to believe that if prospects are deciding earlier, then there should be an early letter of intent signing period, like in college basketball.

The debate over adding an early signing period affects almost every coach and conference in Division I football. Many believe it would give smaller schools an equal shot at luring top recruits as well as alleviating some of the stress that goes with the recruiting process. Others, though, feel it would only rush prospects into life-changing decisions.

A verbal commitment is a non-binding agreement between the football player and the school. Commitments do not become official until they are in writing.

College basketball has two signing periods, one in the fall and one in the spring. College football only has one signing day, which has traditionally been on the first Wednesday in February.

Even though it seems high school athletes are deciding earlier, it would take a lot in order to create an early signing period – likely a majority of college coaches would have to be in favor of another signing period. Then, they would have to petition the Collegiate Commissioners Association for approval.

But many Bowl Championship Series conferences have already taken the temperature of their coaches’ feelings toward an earlier signing day. The coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, Southeastern Conference and Pac-10 all had votes to decide in the spring and came back with a split decision. The ACC and Big 12 were in favor of an early signing period, while the SEC and Pac-10 voted against it. The Big East has yet to hold a vote.

Most coaches, though, are in some type of agreement that the date of an early signing period should be at the end of December.

‘Now, when we say early, if you’re talking about August, that’s probably too early,’ Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer said. ‘If you’re talking December, I think that’s a bit more feasible. It would take guys that have had a chance to look at the schools they’ve been interested in and kind of take them off the board.’

Some have thrown around dates in August or July, but December works because it allows the prospects more time to make one of the most important decisions of their lives. Still, some coaches believe December is still too soon and keep reiterating the fact that time is paramount to the recruit.

Southern California head coach Pete Carroll is one such coach. Carroll has consistently pulled in some of the top recruiting classes in the nation during the past few seasons, including the No. 2 class rated by Scout.com in 2007. Yet he feels coaches need to watch an entire high school season before making a decision to offer a scholarship.

‘We’re just making it harder for the young kids by rushing them along,’ Carroll said. ‘I think we should take all the time that we have right now, and it works out fine.’

Another one of the nation’s top recruiters, Florida head coach Urban Meyer, has made his feelings perhaps more public than any other coach.

‘I’m very much against it,’ Meyer said. ‘I think you’re already cutting into these young guys’ opportunities to go visit schools. People are making decisions without looking at all the opportunities.’

Darius Fleming, a four-star linebacker prospect from St. Rita (Ill.) High School, verbally committed to Notre Dame on April 21, nearly 10 months before signing day.

He said other schools are still calling him, but they’ve been respectful of his oral commitment to the Irish. But some recruiters said he didn’t give them a fair chance.

‘I just wanted to get it off my shoulders,’ Fleming said. ‘I would tell someone not to. I would go out and see all of (the schools).’

Some argue that once a decision is reached, a prospect shouldn’t have to wait to sign. If an early date was established, there would still be a second one in February for those still undecided.

‘If a guy makes up his mind, let him sign,’ Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson said. ‘It saves everyone a lot of time, trouble and money. If we get a guy committed in the middle of the summer, we’ll probably go and recruit him five times more during the season and five times more after the season’s over.’

Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson is in a similar position to Vanderbilt’s. Both are BCS schools that are not considered a national power like USC, Florida or Tennessee. Robinson is in favor of an early signing period and thinks it could be used as a checkpoint for the team’s needs.

‘(If) you have it in the mid-December range, it gives you a pretty good clue where you are and what your needs are with six weeks to go in recruiting,’ Robinson said. ‘To me, I thought that made sense, so you could kind of get your ducks in line a little bit.’

It seems as though the Syracuses and Vanderbilts of the world would be more likely to approve an early signing period because their prospect pool is generally weaker than that of a USC or a Florida. If the Orange has a four- or five-star recruit give a verbal commitment, a powerhouse program could just as easily persuade the player to go elsewhere. With an early signing period, that threat would be minimized.

‘I think a lot of the non-powers would be up for it,’ said Newberg, the recruiting analyst. ‘What happens is if you’re a Florida or an Ohio State or a USC or a Texas, and you lose a kid late in the process, you’re going to fall back to somebody else. Well, that somebody else could be committed to another school, and you’re going to pluck them away.

‘A while ago, what I heard was a con against an early signing period that it would be about the haves and the have-nots, and the major powers would reap all the rewards. But you know what, that’s how it is anyway!’

Adding another signing period could possibly protect the schools and the players as well. Once a national letter of intent is signed, there would be no reason for other schools to continue to recruit the player, allowing him and his family to relax and enjoy senior year.

‘Well, it’s just to ensure that the ones you do have committed to go ahead and relieve them of anymore of the recruiting process,’ UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell said. ‘A lot of families, even though they would tell a particular institution not to keep calling me and ‘leave me alone,’ they’ll continue to do so. So I think it relieves a lot of families who have to deal with this for a period of time when they have already made a decision.’

The main issue coaches keep debating is time. Time relative to their recruiting possibilities, but the issue of time for a recruit to ensure the he is undeniably comfortable with his choice. Once a recruit signs that letter of intent, there is no turning back.

‘It should be all about the kids,’ Newberg said. ‘They are making the most important decision of their life. It’s about getting an education, playing football and hopefully getting the opportunity to play on Sunday. But for most of them, it doesn’t work out that way, and hopefully you get a good college education and experience college. But if you rush in and sign, you got to go.’

Published on September 26, 2007 at 12:00 pm