(College Football) N(ational) S(igning) D(ay) 2023: Winners and losers

Rivals.com ^ | December 21, 2023 | Adam Gorney

[C19fan]

Another busy National Signing Day is in the books and with that are winners and losers on the day. Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney takes a look:

[C19fan]

Wasn't Dan Mullin fired for poor recruiting??? What the hell is going on with USC?

[C19fan]

Over/under on how many transfers for Dylan Raiola? He seems very high maintenance.

[boycott]

Roll Tide!

[glaseatr]

Once upon a time this was a big deal. Now with the transfer portal wide open. Signing day has lost its luster.

Who was the USC guy that wanted 2M to transfer last week? The school laughed at him so I think he's staying in So.Cal?

[FLT-bird]

Yes, Mullen was a terrible recruiter.

Winners yesterday? Programs that spent more money than others to flip the commitments of several of the nation’s top prospects.

Losers from yesterday? Programs that were out bid on some of the nation’s top prospects thus watching their commitments flip to other schools.

I’m sorry to say it but its as simple as that. Recruiting in college is all strictly about money now. College becomes more and more like the NFL every year. I lost all interest in the NFL and stopped watching almost 20 years ago for this reason.

[FLT-bird]

Once upon a time this was a big deal. Now with the transfer portal wide open. Signing day has lost its luster.

This is the other thing. Is signing day a big deal anymore? If the player you sign turns out to be good, he'll just go in the portal to get an even bigger payday from somebody else a year or two later.

[subterfuge]

Let’s see what happens in a couple of years when some top recruit that’s getting big dollars flames out in year one.

[buckalfa]

"If the player you sign turns out to be good, he'll just go in the portal to get an even bigger payday from somebody else a year or two later."

That's Murica! Free markets and capitalism!

[38special]

Who really cares about mostly black teens deciding on where they want to play football? Not me

[deport]

Who really cares about mostly black teens deciding
on where they want to play football?

**********

A few must care because there is some large cash offers
out there. I suspect they have some type cancellation
rules within the agreements.

[Svartalfiar]

This is the other thing. Is signing day a big deal anymore? If the player you sign turns out to be good, he'll just go in the portal to get an even bigger payday from somebody else a year or two later.

Tie the payments to schooling/loyalty. Providing they stay in good standing academically, they get 2% end of freshman year, 5% end of sophomore, 10% end of junior, and the 83% balance when they graduate.

[FLT-bird]

The problem is you won’t get good players to sign a deal like that when others are giving them large annual payments from the start.

[Svartalfiar]

The problem is you won’t get good players to sign a deal like that when others are giving them large annual payments from the start.

The problem already is, you lose those good players after paying them a ton for one or two seasons when they leave for those rich schools. What good is it spending a ton of money building up a kid to be a good RB/QB/etc, then he leaves before he's even really played on the team, after a redshirt year and a 95% bench season waiting for the senior star to graduate?

Either way, the rich schools can easily buy the best team they can, and everyone else will end up with scraps. At least if the lesser schools tier their payouts (or include a payback clause), they won't waste a bunch of money on a good player who easily gets stolen by schools with more money once he's trained up. And if a lot of schools did this, then only the best 'students' wouldn't be stuck with it.