Seems completely OK to take other visits if the school still bringing in players at your position.
Commits taking other visits…
- Thread starter pittiswhereiamfrom2
- Start date
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Honestly, coaches who are threatening kids have to be taken at face value. I understand why a coach doesn't want a kid to see if the grass is greener but it doesn't say a lot about how you feel like you did in the recruiting process. Putting a time limit on an offer and pushing a kid to make a commitment that they aren't ready to make doesn't serve much of a useful purpose. Especially if you go and threaten to yank it the moment they post that some coach called and offered them on Twitter because that's what they're told to do by every recruiting service.
I know you can't let kids walk all over you but they really get put into a real "Catch 22" over this stuff.
The reality of it is, verbal commitments mean nothing, especially in the USA of 2023. Our country as a whole have no respect for rules, regulations, laws, let alone each other. Pretty hard to expect some 18 year old high school star athlete to understand what the word commitment means when there is a 50/50 chance that he comes from a home with divorced parents.
For the kids of this generation and most of their parents, the words "commitment" and "respect" mean nothing at all, NOTHING.
The earlier a kid commits, the more I expect kids to take other visits if not outright decommit. Kids are kids. I mean a verbal is just that. Kids get caught up in a momentary bit of exuberance and commit. Months go by, he sees all of these players take visits, meanwhile he still is being recruited and feels he is missing out. I can't hold it against someone. It is those who do it multiple of times or worse, at the very end and now you are stuck.
However in saying that, jesus people close to Farmer has to be telling him WVU is no bueno. He might loved the repoire he had with some coaches, but they ain't going to be there next year.
This has always been a thing, everywhere.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
How dramatic. This has been going on forever in college football. And let's not forget that over recruiting and pulling commitments has been a thing for a really long time in CFB.
Keep in mind that many of these kids are getting dozens if not hundreds of calls, texts, and DMs from full blown adults daily, selfishly trying to convince them how their entire future rides on their attendance to each school. But yeah, let's throw 17 to 18-year-olds under the bus as what's wrong with the system.
It is not "dramatic", it is just the reality of the situation. Is there "over recruiting and pulling commitments"? Absolutely there is. Still doesn't change the point of my post, commitment and respect are basically gone with a number of young people in our country. What the NCAA needs to do, is have some sort of any early signing period in college football. That would allow all of these future NFL players to make their commitment official and binding by the student and the school. By the way, I feel the same way about coaches who are under a signed contract that leave a program early. The school should say no and take them to court to make them complete the commitment they agreed to and signed.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
There isn’t any social influence on how a kid behaves in the recruiting process. It’s just no longer a one sided affair where a skeezy adult can lie to a kid and then bury him on the depth chart or kick him to the curb and the kid has no choices.
Truth. Most commits, by far, wind up sticking. No point getting amped up over the few that move on. Every team experiences this to some degree.
This is where I normally come in and say there should be no such thing as a signing period or signing day. Whenever you are ready to commit, you sign whether its June, July, October, whenever. If you arent 100%, then dont sign yet.
Unfortunately parents for the most part.
The ‘commitment’ is more a reason for a “media gathering” event and the splash TRILLION PERCENT COMMITTED!!!!!!!!” tweet. Followed increasingly with the “Respect my Decision” tweet for the renegment a few months later, once the tier 1 “dream school” offers.
Our coaches are caught in the preposterous dilemma of hyping up the commitment on social media (to show they’re “hustling”), but keeping the actual name silent (so as not to “ruin the recruits big reveal”), plus with the knowledge that the commitment will sometimes, seemingly more frequently each year, get reneged on particularly for higher profile guys.
In a way, the local WPA recruits that hate Pitt and leave us off their “Top 37 List” From the very start are doing everyone a favor, even and especially Pitt. It is far more a dick move to pretend we’re the top choice all along, commit early, and then renege to sign with the enemy in the 11th hour.
How many people do you know who switched jobs or partners in the last 3 years?? It is not the kids, it is society. Most everyone wants more than what they have.
But the switching jobs argument has the same problem as the changing commitment thing for recruiting.
If your job can find someone better/cheaper to replace you they 100% will. Because your job doesn't care about you. Just like coaches will find better players to replace the guys who aren't contributing as much as they'd like. So why wouldn't you be actively looking to improve your circumstances by changing jobs or changing schools?
and that's the problem. Why would athletes or workers give priority and loyalty to their family and not the company that joins and funds organizations that are specifically created to lobby and suppress wages and mobilty.
This discussion reminds me of Eli Drinkwitz’s comments last week. When he started ranting about NIL and talked about how some of his players are making more money than his brother-in-law, whose a pediatrician that saves lives.
Drinkwitz didn’t seem to have any problem with the fact that he himself makes more money than his pediatrician family member.
There’s a horrible hypocrisy in the standard we hold the actual on field talent to, compared to the dudes making millions, largely to just be JAGs.
Drinkwitz didn’t seem to have any problem with the fact that he himself makes more money than his pediatrician family member.
There’s a horrible hypocrisy in the standard we hold the actual on field talent to, compared to the dudes making millions, largely to just be JAGs.
Last edited:
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Too many college people are stuck in their mind over players getting compensation or having some freedom. The way things "should" work rarely reflects the way things do. Goes back to perceived value. An NIL donor will absolutely rail against someone working for them making a good wage but will happily throw cash at a kid because he wants to see his favorite football program win.
Absolutely one of the most tone deaf and lacking self awareness comments ever uttered.
Instead of making an arbitrary LOI day where a verbal is binding, why don't they give a time limit on verbals becoming binding commitments? In other words, a kid makes a verbal commitment to Pitt on April 1. Automatically, his verbal becomes a binding commitment and automatically generates a LOI 14 days after the verbal is made, on April 15. The earlier they make a verbal commitment, the earlier they are officially "committed" to that school. No more LOI day or whatever they call it. If the kid wants to back out of his verbal, he has 14 days after his verbal to do so.
I can't believe anyone would consider leaving their job as an example of "people now not honoring commitments". Because unless there is a contract, they can cut you tomorrow with cause. And companies have always taken advantage of loyalty, whether it is because they think they don't have to, or some weird archaic "salary band" slotting system for jobs that prohibited growth. The worst thing they would do is promote people to a level of incompetence which weakens the position and alot of times costs them their job, instead of paying. I have had 4 jobs. I have found leaving every 8-10 years not only reinvigorates and reenergizes you, this is where you get more than that 2-3% salary bump.
So how is that lacking commitment?
So how is that lacking commitment?
Yeah, I guess you're right. It's a different paradigm now. The days of real commitment and ethics are over.
That's funny that he thinks Morgantown is a city. LOL! Charleston maybe. And that's even questionable. Is there a real city in the whole state of WV?
Coaches don't keep the names of verbal recruits silent to not ruin the recruit's big reveal, they don't name verbal recruits because that is a clear and obvious violation of NCAA rules. And it's an easy one to prove. And therefore an easy one to punish.
Coaches are not allowed to name recruits, not just verbals, but anyone they are or could be recruiting, until they sign a letter of intent.
I would have to disagree with your statement. Are you trying to tell me that 17-18 year old kids are not influenced by social media? Come on.
Still does not change my point about this generation of kids have no real idea of what respect and commitment mean.
It should be their parents, but hard to preach respect and commitment when the divorce rate is near 50%.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
For most, probably not as much as adults like to pretend, tbh. But are you really trying to tell me that 17-18 year-old kids haven't always been fickle and indecisive? Prone to poor decision making?
It's a huge decision for them. You're trying to inject some level of social commentary into this and that just isn't really the case. These kids get brought in and have all this attention paid to them. Nice dinners, a pretty girl to lead him on a tour around campus, a photo shoot...all the VIP treatment. Glitz and glamour is awesome and they get pumped up and commit on their emotions. Of course they'll have second thoughts because....
...imagine a world where you're engaged but you are only allowed limited contact with your fiance and there are constantly other suitors calling and texting you and it's completely understood that this is just the way it works. Worse, they're telling you that you've made a mistake and that you should come visit and give it a second thought. They're going to get you a nicer car and maybe the girl that gives the tour is going to give you a really "special" tour. This is what college recruiting looks like and it's not even something new.
De-commits' and running around visiting other schools isn't something new. It's true that kids have a bit more power now and a ton of visibility that they didn't get to enjoy before. The adults have really stepped up the pressure and there is more attention paid to recruiting now than ever. Also a lot more on the line with the NIL. Nothing to do with "kids these days".
I'm pretty sure every generation thought the next generation lacked respect, commitment, and acted entitled. It won't stop either.
Back in my day..... I catch myself doing it with my own kids, just like my parents did with us. Times change and people change.
It's not much different than it has been for the past 40-50 years. Marriage rates in 1979 were 10.4 and the divorce rate was 5.3.
Well here's a thing. Back in the day, pre social media and sites like this, you don't know who recruited or committed who until LOI day. And Stan Savran would have Mike White on. You don't know if say Curvin Richards verbaled to LSU or A&M and then switched to Pitt unless it got out.
Look, I an not even going to read either of your responses because we could keep going back and forth on this subject and neither of us are going to change our beliefs. For me, I was taught and have lived that way my entire life, when you give your word/make a commitment to a job. a person, a league, a whatever...you fulfill that commitment. I don't care about a 18 year old kid who wants to have his online ego stroked by telling everyone how many scholarships he's received or who they are from. My issue is when they say they are committed to such A, B or C, abide by your statement. If you are not sure which school to go to, don't make an announcement at all, until you are sure. Same thing with a marriage. If you aren't willing to work through the issues that being in a committed relationship brings, then don't get married.
I know of to many children who now come from a broken home because mommy or daddy weren't able to work through the issues in that family, it is truly sad.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Thanks for the white flag. Also pretty wild that you defended a kid flipping from UCLA to Oregon last fall but now it's just society that's crumbling.
Yeah. That’s a good point that I’d forgotten (about the laughable but very real rule of coaches prohibited from mentioning names). All while every measure of sleaze and money and chest thumping by everyone ELSE in the process flies about left and right. But, it definitely is the rule, and the reason for the bizarre esoteric tweets from the coaches that have no meaningful information to them.
I’m constantly wondering why I bother following this sport…
Our society IS crumbling right before our own eyes. What is going on now in college sports is just another example of it. I grew up in a military family. Following rules and regulations, treating people with respect, following through with a commitment meant something. I absolutely hate how players are now changing from one team to another.
Similar threads
