2 weeks Ago
Everyone kind of shrugged and moved on when the NCAA announced it was doing away with the National Letter of Intent. One Division I administrator described the NCAA’s announcement last month as “a nothingburger.” No kidding.
That much is evident in the way lots of coaches either shrug it off or casually explain its insignificance. For them, it’s the least impactful thing to happen over the last few years. Because NLI doesn’t hold a candle to NIL in the battle of acronyms.
Or, for that matter, the transfer portal and all the other things that don’t go by three-letter abbreviations that now complicate the way coaches stock their rosters. Besides, what’s really changing by eliminating that iconic document from the mix? There will still be National Signing Days along with multiple windows to make commitments. The early signing period for basketball runs for a week starting Nov.
13; its regular period is in the spring from April 16 through May 21, 2025. Football can gather official commitments Dec. 4-6 and again Feb.
1 through April Fool’s Day. Photo opps from those days will continue, too. Family and coaches and anyone else who can squeeze into the frame will still pose around the athletes on their big day.
Pens will also continue to be put to paper. Athletes will now endorse scholarship forms and other grant-in-aid paperwork. And the rules are the same as they were with a binding NLI (not NIL), meaning no other schools can contact the athlete.
So, signing days are still a thing even if some jaded folks feel the event has been neutered by the transfer portal. After all, they’re hard to take seriously considering the ease and likelihood with which athletes now bounce around. Hundreds went through the ritual of a signing day ceremony in recent years that had fanbases frothing at the mouth with glee.
Yet the possibilities of that day ended up being a tease when so many of those athletes split for other destinations. It’s kind of like looking back at a celebrity relationship that ended after much hype and hoopla. Throw up a hand if you really believed Bennifer 2.
0 was going to last. If you did, then you’re just a sucker for love. Still, not everyone is as jaded.
In this age of revolving-door rosters, the signing day ritual is at least something coaches can wrap their arms around for some kind of stability. And those folks, as much as anyone in any other profession, detest uncertainty. “I like it and I think some kids like it,” Clemson men’s basketball coach Brad Brownell said.
“Kids at this level, most of them have been recruited since their sophomore year. It’s kind of a way for them to get it over with so they can put it behind them and enjoy their senior year. “And, obviously, for us, it gives us direction moving forward so we know who we have already (locked up) and can plan accordingly.
Or at least as much as you can in this day and age when it’s hard to plan. To be able to know who you have coming a year or six months in advance is a good thing.” Today's Top Headlines Story continues below Pilot error caused missing F-35 jet and ejection over North Charleston, investigation finds Why is International Paper closing its Georgetown mill? Here's what the CEO said.
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You can’t help but wonder, however, if Florida football coach Billy Napier is so optimistic. Or his Miami counterpart Mario Cristobal. Both thought they had their future quarterback in Jaden Rashada, a top-100 recruit who verbally pledged his fealty to Miami in June 2022.
Three months after that, he switched to Florida, apparently on the promise of a better NIL (again, not NLI) arrangement. Rashada inked the necessary documents during that year’s early signing period. A done deal? Hardly.
In January 2023, he claimed Florida wasn’t upholding its side of the bargain, so he asked for – and was granted – release from his letter of intent. Rashada transferred to Arizona State and then to Georgia after one season. Now the Bulldogs’ third-string quarterback, he has a federal lawsuit unfolding that claims Florida, Napier, a booster and others shafted him of millions.
Perhaps a first: When, in the long history of college football, has there been a game held as a player on one side is actively suing an opposing coach? We'll find out today when No. 2 Georgia plays Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. The thing is, it actually doesn’t even seem that weird anymore.
Certainly not after UNLV had its quarterback shut down his season a few weeks ago under similar claims (though for far smaller amounts) only four games into the season. These kinds of things – lawsuits for breach of contract, work stoppages over failure to meet expectations – are what happens in the business world. And it’s evident now more than ever that it’s a monster of a business.
The NCAA’s flexing of its feeble muscles is merely an extension of all that. The elimination of the NLI (once more – not NIL) is merely part of a segue to the next phase that will include actual contracts. That’s not a case of if, but when, either.
Revenue sharing will become a reality thanks to the landmark House Settlement that empowers schools to dole out more than $20 million to its athletes as soon as next summer. Schools are working to streamline things between collectives and athletes; the cry to have blanket NIL regulations instead of scattershot rules continues to grow louder. All told, it indicates the NCAA was either smartly proactive by doing away with the letters of intent or stumbled onto the right thing, for a change.
“I don’t want to give the NCAA that much credit,” the aforementioned administrator said. “It does clear the path for the evolution of contracts and financial agreements that are binding both for the student-athlete and the university. And, hopefully, it provides a little more stability.
It’s almost just a placeholder until they get contracts.” The thing is, when Rashada signed that NLI (NOT NIL!) for Florida, Napier thought it was a contract..
