Oversigning, What does it Mean?
By Scott Kennedy
Director of Scouting
Posted Feb 7, 2008
After seeing the same question on message boards all across the country, it finally hit me, maybe it's time to explain part of the process of over-signing. With a scholarship limit of 25 every year, how can teams sign over 30 players?
The answer to that question is relatively simple.
Teams can sign as many players as they want. It's just that they can only enroll 25 scholarship athletes in a calendar year.
It is possible to bring in more than 25 new scholarship players from one season to the next, but two things must happen.
1. The team cannot have been at its maximum of 25 the year before.
2. A Junior college player must enroll in December.
One more thing to consider, no matter how many players are enrolled, a team cannot have more than 85 scholarship players at one time, ever.
To explain the "count back", let's say I enrolled 21 freshmen to my team last fall, that would mean I have four spots that I didn't use. I could enroll four junior college players in December and count them towards the previous year, since it falls within the calendar year. Then once I sign my full allotment of scholarships this February, I'm getting 29 new faces for summer practice.
So how do teams sign 30+ high school players?
Again, teams can only enroll 25 a year, so some of those guys aren't going to be on the team come summer practice. There will be some academic casualties. Those are players that fail to meet the academic minimums required to play NCAA sports, and they will be denied admission. Once they are denied admission, they are recruitable athletes again.
Some players will be asked to enroll in January of next year, and sign Letters of Intent again in 2009. Technically, those players will be a part of the Class of 2009, and not 2008.
Doesn't that seem to skew the Team Recruiting Rankings, when teams are signing 30 guys, but they can't enroll more than 25?
It's impossible to tell which players are going to qualify on Signing Day. I can name literally dozens of players that "were never going to make it" that are on college campuses right now. In fact, the player many of us felt was the No. 1 prospect just last season, was moved down in the rankings ever so slightly, because it was assumed he wasn't going to qualify... He did qualify.
So, Scout does not remove grade risk players from the rankings on Signing Day. It would me morally irresponsible, and logistically impossible to label a player a non-qualifier and hurt his chances of being recruited. We have a good idea, and we miss on players' abilities all the time, but missing on trying to guess whether a player is going to qualify or not, is not something I'm willing to be wrong on. It's up to the schools to check transcripts.
So, there will be some academic casualties, but back to the question: Doesn't that seem to skew the Team Recruiting Rankings, when teams are signing 30 guys, but they can't enroll more than 25?
Yes it does.
Scout tries to combat this several ways.
1. Scout only counts the Top 25 prospects in the signing class towards it's Team Rankings.
Some may look at Alabama and say, "well they signed 32 guys, of course they were No. 1."
True, Alabama did sign 32 players, but Scout only counts the Top 25. Take a look at Alabama's Top 25. There are 20 players in the Scout 300 (4 and 5 star players), that's more than anyone else in the country. Miami signed 33, but look at their Top 25. They have seven players in the Top 100. They have three 2-Star players that are bringing down their average star ranking that aren't even counting towards the rankings.
So, while it's inherently impossible to tell right now, which of the 25 are going to be on the field next year, Scout limits the effects of oversigning, by not counting more than 25.
2. Scout does not list Grayshirts on the next year's class rankings.
Those players that end up being asked to sign again next year after sitting out in the fall, do not get to count towards the team rankings on consecutive Februaries. Those teams that load up on Grayshirts will have a self-imposed Scout probation of sorts. They'll count those players towards next year's allotment of 25, but Scout isn't going to count them towards their Team Rankings. A player should never count twice towards the team rankings, but currently prep school football players and junior college transfers do (something we will eventually change). All of you making note of the oversignings, make note now, the teams that have the grayshirts will have less players counted in the rankings next year.
3. Scout re-ranks the classes in September based on who actually shows up.
Signing a players is part of the battle, but getting them on the practice field is what matters the most. Every year we have people suggest that we re-rank the players in September, and for the past four years, we have. It's been a feature in the recruiting yearbook in the Fall. We'll put it online next year and make it easier to find. So, keep a look out in September for the re-rankings, because like you, we'll be curious to find out which of these players will be hitting the field.
Yes teams oversign, and yes it can skew the rankings. It's something we try and combat with the three methods I mentioned above, but what's the bottom line in all of this?
The bottom line, is no matter what the final recruiting rankings end up being, it has absolutely nothing to do with what actually is going to happen on the field. Whether Scout counts 25 guys or 35 guys, the only thing that changes is the perception of the strength of the class. It doesn't actually change how good the teams on the field are going to be.
We know that.
It's in our best interest to reflect to you the reader who is getting the best players, and we also know that yesterday's signing day was only one step towards building a championship caliber team.
If you have more comments or questions about your team, please join us on the recruiting message board:
maybe i should have started a blog. 
