Did they change the recruiting rules over the last few years or do people normally commit this early? When i was getting recruited a few years back, nobody went on official visits until the fall of Senior year. It was very rare to hear someone commit before their XC season started.
When my kid went through this a few years ago, he hadn’t committed by the start of XC meets because one school that seemed to like him hadn’t offered yet. By the first week of September his friends who were d1 recruits were all panicked for him telling him he had to commit somewhere or the offers would dry up and he’d be left out.
Whether that is accurate as to how things would have played out or if it is what coaches see as the timeline, it suggests to me that the kids think they need to pull the trigger, if they can, by the end of August or early September and certain well before signing day.
My kid is in the middle of this now. Coaches seem to be optimizing around official visits - take one good hard look at the kid, and the kid gets a real feel for the school, then you offer / commit. So lots of September action. Everyone has been pretty transparent with letting us know where we are at, and no one has put any time pressure. Some coaches have said 'hey, once we get closer, I may need an answer from you.'
My child (class of 2022) heard from coaches that due to Covid, uncertainty of un/official visits that things for top recruits were happening earlier. Most of the colleges trying to recruit her asked her in June-July following her junior year, how soon she was wanting to make a decision. I'm assuming this may be a new trend: early bird gets the worm.
As we\'ve done before, we took some swings to predict where a few of the best names in the country could go as the NLI period inches closer in November.