The February edition of National Signing Day is here, meaning high school prospects around the country will formalize their plans to play at the next level.
Here's what you need to know about National Signing Day:
What is National Signing Day?
National Signing Day marks the day when high school student-athletes are able to officially sign a letter of intent to play their sport at a college or university of their choosing. In essence, it’s when high schoolers “commit” to their schools.
The February date is now unofficially part two of National Signing Day, as there’s an early signing day in December. For that reason...
It doesn’t carry the fanfare it used to
The early signing day is when most of the headlines are made in today’s recruiting climate. According to the Associated Press, about 80 percent of available scholarships in major college football were handed out in December, making the February signing day “more of an afterthought.”
Still, there are always a few big names left that can shake up the recruiting class rankings, and NCAA coaching changes can cause players to change their minds. For example, Khris Bogle, a four-star pass rusher out of Fort Lauderdale, had committed to Alabama during a national high school all-star game last month but flipped on Wednesday to Florida. Darnell Wright, an offensive lineman from West Virginia ranked as a top-5 prospect in the country by ESPN,was expected to choose between Tennessee and Alabama on Wednesday.
Where are DFW student-athletes headed?
Our friends at the Star-Telegram have compiled a complete list of DFW athletes and their college destinations. Check out that list here.
How did the local colleges fare?
Here's a breakdown of how the Texas schools – and OU – fared in the recruiting world.
Spoiler alert: Pretty darn well.
What the heck do the stars mean?
It’s hard to pin down, in Layman's terms at least, what exactly goes into the star ratings – and it can vary by recruiting service. The star rating is the most macro-level analysis of a high school prospect. Rivals, a widely-recognized authority in the recruiting world, explains it like this:
“A five-star prospect is considered to be one of the nation's top 25-30 players, four star is a top 250-300 or so player, three-stars is a top 750 level player, two stars means the player is a mid-major prospect and one star means the player is not ranked.”
The recruiting services each dig deeper into the rankings by assigning composite scores to student-athletes, based on algorithms that can vary service to service. 247, another well-known recruiting site, explains their method:
“The 247Sports Composite Rating is a proprietary algorithm that compiles prospect ‘ranking’ and ‘ratings’ listed in the public domain by the major media recruiting services. It converts average industry ranks and ratings into a linear composite index capping at 1.0000, which indicates a consensus No. 1 prospect across all services.”
