USC receives verbal from Seventh Grade phenom

This is not a  joke, although I wish that it was one.  Yesterday, USC head coach Lane Kiffin received a verbal commitment from 13-year old phenom QB David Sills.  Sills, a prospect who has been on my radar and in my database for over a year, is considered to be one of the top young QB prospects to emerge in years.  Highly respected QB guru Steve Clarkson called him better than Jimmy Clausen and Matt Barkley at the same age.

Check out this article on ESPN for more info on Sills.

This is the earliest I have ever seen a football prospect give a verbal commitment.  There are only two other junior high prospects who I can recall committing early.   Chris Leak committed to Wake Forest after his older brother (C.J. Leak) signed to play football for the Deamon Deacons.  His older brother eventually transferred and Chris went on to lead Florida to a national title.    Eric Berry’s younger brother, Evan Berry, committed to Tennessee last year.  Whether that early verbal sticks with Lane Kiffin moving on to USC will be interesting to follow.  Could Kiffin land yet another young pup?

Frankly, I  find the the notion of offering a middle schooler a full college ride appalling.  What about academics?  What about deciding on a high school first?  What about just being a kid and enjoying growing up without being in the national spotlight?  I really don’t care how talented of a prospect we are talking about.  At a certain age a kid should just be a kid.

Unfortunately, the timeline for recruiting prospects earlier in football is accelerating at a remarkable pace.  I see it every year with more and more juniors committing to schools.  Just take a look at my Class of 2011:  Verbals listing to get an updated view of where some of the top juniors will likely be headed.    I provide information to colleges on underclass prospects and I have an underclassman database available to them with over 22,000 juniors, 10, 000 sophomores, 2,000 freshmen and even junior high prospects, including the aforementioned Mr. Sills.

Nevertheless, the notion of actually offering a junior high prospect and accepting his verbal commitment strikes me as repugnant.  The fact of the matter is that the NCAA does not have regulations in place limiting contact between college coaching staffs and FOOTBALL prospects who have yet to finish junior high.  Such restrictions are in place for basketball prospects but up until very recently this has not really been an issue with respect to football recruiting as prospects are not nearly as easily identifiable at an early stage as they are in basketball.

For many years now college programs have tracked middle school basketball phenoms, something relatively easy to do given their easily identifiable “baller” skills and with the top players competing in national-level AAU tournaments and various summer camps.   Football players, however, have less easily identifiable and position-specific skill sets and are still very much physically immature in junior high.

There are, however, exceptions to the rule and young Mr. Sills appears to be one.  These exceptional prospects will have young, slick and aggressive recruiters like Lane Kiffin knocking at their doors.  Their videos are often posted on youtube and are seen by college coaches.  They need to be PROTECTED.  No seventh-grader should be deciding where he will be attending college.  No seventh-grader should be exposed to slick college recruiting pitches.  A seventh-grader’s parents should be shielding a young student-athlete from the entire process, not playing a role as a willing accessory in the process.

I have a seventh-grade daughter.  The big decisions in her life relate to balancing homework, going out with friends and being torn between still watching Hannah Montana or more high school-like TV programming.     I would never let a college coach get near her for recruiting purposes. Never!  I wouldn’t care if she was the second coming, as a tennis player, of Chris Everet or the Williams sisters.  It is not a question of athletic ability.  It is a question of having a relatively normal childhood and growing up in a  protected and nurturing environment.  Few things in recruiting, over the years, have disturbed me as much as this early commitment.

Coach Kiffin is very young and very aggressive.  He has a reputation for pushing the envelope and a brief history of several secondary NCAA violations.   What he has just done is NOT an NCAA violation, however the NCAA needs to immediately change its rules relating to contacts between college football coaches and junior high prospects.  If not, this will just be the beginning.  And trust me, most college coaches would welcome the NCAA tightening up the rules.  No sane college coach, who already has to spend much too much time recruiting high school athletes, wants to have to start scouting junior high and sandlot ball prospects.  Just the notion of them out there recruiting these prospects alongside high school coaches from catholic, private and magnet schools is repelling and takes away the time that college coaches should be using for developing their current team members both on and off the field.