National Signing Day to take place Feb. 4

So national signing day comes next week - on Feb. 4 to be exact!

What exactly does THAT mean?

It turns out in soccer it doesn’t mean that much. Or does it?

Oh, there will be some paperwork filed as coaches across the country are faxing documents to those players who have verbally committed to their programs, but most of the real drama for Class of 2009 graduates is long gone by now. In fact, the biggest news over the past month has been of players from the 2010 class making their commitments, more than a year before THEIR signing day comes.

On the Girls’ side in particular we’ve seen juniors like  Juliann Jeffrey (Yale), Vanessa Laxgang (Clemson) and Kecia Morway (Notre Dame) commit, while top Boys standouts from the class such as Harrison Petts (Indiana), Cole Chapleski (Denver) and Perry Kitchen (Akron) have all signed up.

There’s a lot that can be said about the push for early commitments and how it changes the dynamic of college recruiting. We will continue to comment about this subject, but one thing we can say here is that it makes signing day almost a non-event. With the NCAA restrictions on reporting recruits, schools have to wait for the most of the class to be confirmed before making an official announcement, so typically not even 25 percent of the more than 500 DI programs (men and women combined) even make their announcement on signing day).

Here’s another thing that’s true: Every year there are some lesser-known players, players who didn’t commit early and maybe went the more conventional senior-heavy recruiting process, who end up making a big difference to their college programs over the next four years. Superstars are important, but soccer as the ultimate team game requires 11-18 solid producers, and the math tells you these won’t all be high profile producers.

So even as you track, along with us, the big name signings, keep tracking as well, also along with us, every DI signing from more than 500 programs across the country.

So signing day means nothing in some cases, and everything in others. Watch with us to find out which is which and who is who.