What happens on April 2

[osustamm]

Hey Recruiting Experts. I've got a question for you.

If a high school senior football recruit has until April 1 to sign a letter of intent, what happens after the deadline if they have not signed? Can they still get an athletic scholarship? Do they become a glorified walk on? Can they transfer to another school easier?

Thanks for your input.

[Hodgepodge]

As I understand it.............

A letter of intent is insurance for college in that it locks in a player to a college and disallows contact from any other program. After April 1, an SA can sign a conference letter of intent that I believe can be signed at pretty much any point up until the start of school (I know the Big Ten has one, but I'm not certain every conference does). This conference LOI works much the same way as a national letter of intent, but only keeps fellow conference schools from contacting said SA or switching to another conference school before the start of school.

As far as I know, a college can offer an SA a scholarship at any point during this process, and no signing of a LOI is required (I'm not 100% certain of that, though). The reason for the LOI process in the first place was that it was standard practice that some SAs would commit to multiple schools, and those schools would never really know which of their commitments were going to show up for school until the first day of school/practice. The national and conference letters of intent have put an end to this and allows college programs to be better able to build their rosters.