"Until they sign, you don't know..."

National Signing Day has come and gone for more than 300 DI Women’s college soccer programs, and while the push for early commits has taken most of the drama away from the day,  there are some elements in the recruiting process that keep Wednesday relevant.

The recruiting calendar for girls is earlier than it has ever been.

“Until they sign you don’t know if you really get them,” said Kansas head coach Mark Francis. “People commit, but once they sign is when they’re bound. Prior to that, they may choose to do something else. There are several kids I know in the 2010 class who have already changed their minds, but once you get that fax from them, you know they’re coming.”

National Signing Day applies to students in their senior year of school. Each season of sport governed by the NCAA has a different signing period, and Wednesday was the day for Fall sports. Verbal commitments, while commonplace now for high school juniors and even sophomores on the Girls side, are not binding to players.

Francis said most schools back off when an athlete makes a verbal, but not everyone.

“Unfortunately it’s becoming more common. You never used to hear about that five or six years ago. It’s because kids are committing so early,” he said. “When we contact a kid and they tell us they’ve committed, we say ‘Good luck. Tell us is anything changes. To us, they’re done.”

Michigan State coach Tom Saxton agreed that while the drama may be largely gone from signing day, the excitement isn’t.

“I still think it’s very exciting in particular for the prospective student athlete, their family, the high school environment and for us, because it makes it official,” he said. “We hear from our prospects that they are at ceremonies at their schools, sometimes involving football and other sports’ athletes take part in all of that as well. It’s a big day.”

Saxton said he hasn’t been in too many situations over the years where commitments were reneged upon.

“I think we in women’s soccer have been pretty good about respecting verbal commitments. It doesn't get as ugly as with other sports, but we do everything to make sure we follow through on our commitment during that period of time, sometimes as much as two years, that we’re waiting around. We hope the student-athlete is doing the same thing by working to improve their game and making sure about their academics. There’s not too many horror stories out there about poaching of kids who have already committed.”

Francis and Saxton both said they are eager to receive the signed fascimilies from their recruits as early as possible on signing day. While their statements highlight a rare continuing use for the fax machine, it also reveals that at least in coaching offices, anxiety still has its place on signing day, even for non-revenue sports like soccer.

But compared to big brother football, they don’t know anxiety.

“We didn’t have any issues and got all of ours in,” Francis said. “I know in the football office they are sitting by the fax and waiting. Those guys don’t really know who they’ll get by the end of the day.”

Click here for a complete list of commitments.