College signing day has become an over-hyped holiday in the sports world
Pat Anders, Sports Reporter
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Sports
Signing day rolled around last week, and we saw the best high school football talent sign their letters of intent to play college football at some of the top programs in the country. Schools like Notre Dame, Miami, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, and LSU walked away with top ten recruiting classes. ESPN gave the day more than enough attention as did many other local and national sports and high school media outlets. What does all this attention and hype mean? Well, if you think about it, it doesn't really mean all that much.
When signing day comes around for certain sports, particularly for more individual-based sports like basketball, or even golf and tennis, grabbing a couple top recruits and bringing in a top class overall makes the chances for your program to do much better in the near future much better. When it comes to a sport like football, you might want to take a harder look at it. Yes, it is very important to bring in a top recruiting class, but if you have a team that is already loaded with experience at certain positions, many of these players will have to red-shirt their freshman year, meaning they sit out. That's no big deal; it happens with hundreds of college football players every year. Say you are one of those top recruits and you decide to red-shirt your freshman year and next year you see your coach has recruited a top player at your position. Uh-oh, now there's some competition, and it looks like you'll be fighting for your spot. There are three things that can feasibly happen. One, you will win the position and earn playing time. Two, you will get beat out and get lost in the depth charts, or three, you will transfer to a new school. My point is that there is so much emphasis placed on the high school players before they have even stepped on a college campus. Who knows how they are going to do two or three years down the road? Not to mention the fact that in the sport of football, the risk of a player getting injured is very high and if that happens, you will find yourself lost in the depth charts.
When signing day comes around for certain sports, particularly for more individual-based sports like basketball, or even golf and tennis, grabbing a couple top recruits and bringing in a top class overall makes the chances for your program to do much better in the near future much better. When it comes to a sport like football, you might want to take a harder look at it. Yes, it is very important to bring in a top recruiting class, but if you have a team that is already loaded with experience at certain positions, many of these players will have to red-shirt their freshman year, meaning they sit out. That's no big deal; it happens with hundreds of college football players every year. Say you are one of those top recruits and you decide to red-shirt your freshman year and next year you see your coach has recruited a top player at your position. Uh-oh, now there's some competition, and it looks like you'll be fighting for your spot. There are three things that can feasibly happen. One, you will win the position and earn playing time. Two, you will get beat out and get lost in the depth charts, or three, you will transfer to a new school. My point is that there is so much emphasis placed on the high school players before they have even stepped on a college campus. Who knows how they are going to do two or three years down the road? Not to mention the fact that in the sport of football, the risk of a player getting injured is very high and if that happens, you will find yourself lost in the depth charts.
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