Michigan Football Recruiting: Mailbag Question — About a Commit

Posted at 6:00am — 7/23/2008

Michigan Football Recruiting: Mailbag Question — About a Commit

I am a little confused. How does a kid commit, but not commit. Is the two paid sites fighting about a kid committed or not? When is a kid committed? When his parents on one site say he did not talk with anybody and that he isn’t committed while the other site has quotes from the kid himself saying he is committed?

How can this be?

Who normally “Okays” the kid? A recruiting coordinator, an asst. coach, a head coach. How does this get cleared up or is this just a timing issue?

Adam

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GBMWolverine Response:

At most, programs official scholarship offers can only come from the head coach.

Assistants will tell players they really like them and would love to have them, but until the head coach offers it is all speculation. Many programs even go step further and official offer does not have force until either in writing or in person from head coach.

The confusion can have multiple causes. One site trying to break information first jumps the gun. One site listens to a family member or family friend who is not privy to final decision. A Kid could change their mind. Someone might ignore family’s wishes to not announce until a certain date. On the other hand, something as simple as miscommunication.

Remember this about recruiting sites. It is a BUSINESS. They are fighting each other for money and subscriptions.

It is a very tough world in recruiting and some will stir the truth in the direction they feel is necessary to show they are the ones that are right. They will also push certain agendas to get the coach’s/administrators such as recruiting coordinators in their favor so they will help them out by giving them information to break. Of course, this is a sketchy way of going down the path of reporting what you believe is actually happening or being a mouthpiece for the program especially if things go wrong on either the football field or the recruiting trail.

You will see them breaking a story about one recruit and the next time they lose out on breaking it, but then they will use the excuse of just doing what the family wanted and allowing the recruit to break the news and trying to spin it and make the other sites look bad.

That is why we try and stay out of the recruiting part of the program and only do breakdowns of players that have either already committed to Michigan or might be a strong lean to Michigan.

Think the biggest issue or at least the one we try and follow is get the story straight and get the most details and commentary of the article your doing. Don’t be first with no facts or not much to go on just so you can say we were first to report it. Doesn’t matter if you don’t have anything else to back it up in our opinion.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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