Many College Football Signees Fail to Make it to School They Signed With

We have all seen the hoopla that surrounds National Signing Day.  Espn gives you 24 hour coverage seemingly on that date in February.  The major recruiting sites are abuzz for the month leading up to and the month after the signing date.  There’s much speculation about where the top recruits will sign and much analysis of each school’s signing class after the letter of intent day.  However,  what gets lost in the shuffle is the number of players from those signing classes that don’t make it on campus at least for their freshman year.

After reading a story that one of the University of Miami’s 2012 recruits,  WR Angelo Louis Jean may have to enter a prep school,  I began wondering how many athletes like Jean each year fall into this category.  In trying to research this topic,  I found very little in terms of numbers regarding this.  I am assuming and this may be incorrectly,  that these numbers are not kept but I would like it if they were. I have seen it happen all too often.  After all of the celebration of a scholarship signing we often miss the news that the player can’t attend the school.  It’s almost like celebrating a Lotto Jackpot win and finding out that the number on the promotional check was 50% less than what the winner received (before taxes wise guys!).

Prep schools are here for this purpose but it seemed back in my day that players headed to prep school didn’t sign letters of intent with major colleges.  Also,  there weren’t cameras present at signing days unless you were one of the top 3 elite players in the county. This is my way of telling you that I am getting old.  What many people don’t realize is that a number of these players that head to the prep schools don’t end up going to the school they originally signed with.  The players at the prep school can be recruited by anyone else while there.  Prep schools have incentives to protect the “property” of the universities that park players in their program but that does not always happen.

Some players also fail to meet the requirements at a prep school and never end up going to college.  How often is that reported and where does that fit into the grade recruiting analysts give these college recruiting classes?  I have heard of far too many cases where players that were picking up hats in front of a large auditorium crowd and television audience never put on the uniform that matches the hat.  I will continue to research this phenomenon and hunt down some numbers.  The only numbers I could readily find was research that said 40% of the 2012 class would have failed to meet the entry requirements that will be put in place in 2016.  A quick look at the new requirements shows that a recruit will need a minimum 2.3 GPA (up from 2.0) and they will need to have completed at least 10 of the required 16 units of core classes by the start of their senior year.    So, with this in mind,  we could see even more desks being added to prep schools across the country if athletes don’t get more serious about their education.

Stay tuned,  more to come on this topic for sure.

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