Recruits need to be educated about their signing day options

It’s time to have an honest conversation about recruiting.

In the past, oh, 15 years or so, recruiting has become big business. There are several websites devoted to it, 16-hour television coverage on National Signing Day and signing ceremonies that affect the normal school schedule.

But there’s also an underbelly.

This isn’t a new underbelly. There’s been deceitful and shady and downright dirty recruiting since teams started fighting each other for players. But this year, the underbelly has been thrust into the spotlight and has sparked an interesting debate about the limits of a national letter of intent.

At least four schools — and a few recruits that signed with those schools — have made national headlines because position coaches have left for other jobs after securing the signatures of high-level players who went to the school simply because they love that coach. Some players feel jilted, scorned and, in the case of Roquan Smith, have refused to sign with their first choice.

The quotes from the high school coaches have been scathing.

“How can these guys (college coaches) talk about the people and the relationships — and then you get these kids signed and then you bail on them at the first time you get the opportunity? Look at all these stories after signing day,” Macon County High School coach Larry Harold, who coach’s Smith, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“You can’t tell me that these head coaches aren’t telling these assistants that they know are leaving – don’t tell anybody until after signing day and then we’ll announce it. That’s deception and that’s dishonesty. And, most importantly, it’s not fair to the kids.”

In that article, Harold talks about the misnomer that players should choose a school and not a coach. He states that at a certain level, all schools are the same in terms of facilities and success and education, but that it’s the coaches and relationships that make the difference.

However, not everyone agrees with that. Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy said in an email interview with Yahoo Sports that he knew better than to make his college choice based on the personnel.

“When I was making my decision on which school to attend as a high school senior, I was given advice that was very helpful, ‘Don't choose the school for the coach or the football, choose it for you.’” McElroy said. “I always kept that in mind throughout recruiting. When I chose Bama, I chose it because it was the school that I felt like I would enjoy the most even if I hadn't played football.”

Coaches leave.

Whether voluntarily or forced out, coaches leave.

There are few programs in the country that have held an entire staff together for more than three years. Coaches have ambitions and it’s hard to fault them for looking for opportunities to advance their careers.

During the past week, there’s been discussion about changing the letter of intent, allowing recruits an escape clause should their position coach take another job. Even the Collegiate Commissioners Association, a group of the 32 Division I conference commissioners that govern the rules of the national letter of intent, have wrestled with whether to include a clause that would allow players to void their national letter of intent in the event of a coaching change. This is a rule some commissioners are trying to get added if college football creates an early signing period that would likely take place for a 72-hour span beginning on Dec. 16.

This, to me, is a tricky subject. You can’t punish the school for the actions of one coach. The only solution might be for the NCAA to require each team's staff to be set before signing day — no moves unless there’s an extreme circumstance — but it would be unlikely for schools to support such a measure.

The best solution to this problem is education. Players should know their rights when it comes to National Signing Day and the letter of intent. Because recruiting has become such a big business, signing on National Signing Day has become almost a mandated process. But National Signing Day for all its bells and whistles is simply the first day a player can sign with a program. A player actually has until April 1 to sign a national letter of intent with a school and even longer if he signs a financial aid agreement, which is much less constricting.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples called the national letter of intent (NLI) “the worst contract in American sports” and it’s hard to fault his reasoning.

Though most players don’t realize it, they do not have to sign the NLI to receive a scholarship. They need only sign a financial aid agreement at their chosen school. The financial aid paperwork provides (almost) the same guarantee of a scholarship as the NLI, but unlike the NLI, it doesn’t strip the player of the only leverage he’ll have until he graduates from college.

Why is the NLI the worst contract in American sports? It requires players to sign away their right to be recruited by other schools. If they don’t enroll at the school with which they signed, they forfeit a year of eligibility. Not a redshirt year, but one of their four years to play. In return, the NLI guarantees the player nothing.

Of course, this wouldn’t work for every recruit. Staples column centers around Smith, the remaining top-rated (academically eligible) recruit left to sign. Smith has options. Several schools are actively recruiting him and are keeping a spot open for him in their recruiting class just in case.

However, if you’re a lower-level recruit with fewer options, well, you might not have as much freedom. You might have to sign a national letter of intent because the school could find another player just like you willing to sign. That’s for each recruit to decide with their family, coaches and whomever they trust in these matters.

But too often stories of recruits feeling betrayed or treated unfairly mar what should otherwise be a joyous step in a young athlete's life. Recruits need to know their options. They need to be educated. They need to know that they wield more power than they think. And it's incumbent upon parents and high school coaches to make sure their sons and athletes have as much information available before they make a life-changing decision.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday

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