Davonte Neal: Star Athlete Making Mistake by Delaying Announcement

Davonte Neal is standing out now, but not for the right reasons. Wednesday is National Signing Day, where nearly every unsigned high school recruit in the country makes their commitment. 

However, that is not happening with Neal.

According to Greg Biggins of ESPN, Neal has pushed his signing date back. 

When you do something that makes you appear indecisive before ever accomplishing anything tangible, you put a bull's-eye on your back. That is never a position you want to be in, but it's even more awkward for Neal. 

Neal has a problem that almost no players have this late in the recruiting season; it's not even clear what position he is going to play. Scout lists him as a defensive back, while Rivals calls Neal a receiver.

The uncertainty doesn't stop there.

According to Rivals, Neal is choosing between Ohio State, Arizona, Notre Dame, Arkansas and North Carolina. His diversity and the amount of schools were working in Neal's favor before Wednesday, but are now turning into bad things. 

Think about what those coaches are now seeing in Neal. He is a guy deciding between five schools, which theoretically means that they have a 20 percent chance of landing him. Those odds are not good. 

Not only are they seeing a guy who could go to one of four other schools, but they don't even know what position he's going to play. Going forth with planning out their roster, these coaches wouldn't even know where to pencil Neal in for hypothetical situations.   

That is not a good start to your college career. Even for a player with his kind of talent, there is too much uncertainty now for any of the previous positives to work in Neal's favor. 

Actually, even the talent works against him. Fair or not, he comes off looking like a diva that insists on making his signing stand out. That may or may not be true, but we're dealing with high school kids. In this world, perception trumps reality.

He would have been better committing to a school or at least officially narrowing his list. That didn't happen. 

Make no mistake, this isn't a doomsday prediction; he will still sign with a school. However, even though pushing back up to two weeks may not seem like a big deal, it really is for the coaches and teams that are trying to figure out how to best plan the 2012 season. 

They generally don't like delays or potential curves. Right now, these five coaches are dealing with both of those things. 

The coaches all know that Neal is a tremendous gamble that they will have to wait extra time for. That isn't the way that anyone should want their college career to start. 

Photo Courtesy of AZCentral.com.

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