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Football signing day is not going to be like it used to be.
The college football transfer portal took care of that.
Wednesday, Dec. 21, is the first day that high school football players can sign letters of intent with colleges. There will be fewer signees Wednesday than usual on national signing day.
NCAA rules on transfers were changed last year. No longer are college athletes required to sit out a year before being eligible to play at their new schools. With the removal of what had been a major disincentive to transfer, a large number of college football players have entered the transfer portal.
College football programs are going to be more interested in handing a roster spot to a proven college football player than to a high school athlete whose potential is an unknown.
Greg Biggins, football recruiting analyst at the 247 Sports website and an analyst for Bally Sports West’s coverage of Southern California high school football, said the highly-rated high school players won’t be affected that much by the loosened transfer portal rules.
“The final five scholarships that college football teams had to offer for years went to high school kids,” Biggins said. “They didn’t go to the high-end kid, but they’d go to the kid a coach would be willing to take a chance on.
“Now those five scholarships are going to transfer portal guys. Some schools are even giving their final eight to 10 scholarships to transfer portal guys instead of high school kids. And when you do the math, factoring in how many colleges are doing that, it’s crushing to high school kids.”
It’s an especially nasty situation for many high school football players who just finished their senior season.
“Take a kid like Troy Leigber,” Biggins said, referring to the outstanding senior running back/safety at CIF Southern Section and CIF State champion Laguna Hills who would have been a star for any Orange County team. “He missed all of his junior year because of injury and he had no sophomore year because of COVID.
“I’ve seen Troy Leigber play and he’s an unbelievably great player. But he’s not getting recruited like he should because practically nobody gets recruited off of what they did their senior year.”
Biggins, who lives in Huntington Beach, has some advice for high school football players who are not getting the sort of college scholarship offers they prefer.
“If you’re waiting for Notre Dame to come knocking, or you’re waiting for USC or Texas, don’t wait for them,” Biggins said. “Not everybody is going to be like (Mater Dei’s elite quarterback) Elijah Brown. If you’re not that guy and if you have four or five good offers and you like them, don’t wait for other schools to come for you because if they do come they will see you as a secondary option and they will always see you as a secondary option.”
Community college is an excellent option for high school athletes in any sport. The level of competition and coaching is good at local community colleges, as is the level of education. The opportunity to get better athletically and academically can help.
“Don’t frown on going the junior college route,” Biggins said. “Don’t go to ‘Elbow State A&M’ and hate it there. Play the long game, go to JC for a year or two and then when you get to a four-year school you’re set.”
NOTES
• Kory Minor’s departure as football coach at St. Margaret’s after six seasons created another job vacancy that will attract interest. St. Margaret’s is a private school, an Episcopalian school, with no attendance boundaries and starting this past season is in the Orange Coast League after having no league affiliation in recent previous years. One drawback, though, is the competition to attract football players in south county is fierce with so many fine options including county 2022 top 10 programs like JSerra, Mission Viejo, San Clemente and Santa Margarita (and that’s an alphabetical list and yes there are other fine football programs in the vicinity so don’t @ me). …
• JSerra could announce its next football coach at any moment. JSerra is down to two excellent candidates. One has plentiful Orange County high school head coaching experience, the other with plentiful college football head coaching experience. …
• Eleven of the 14 CIF Southern Section championships in 11-player football were won by public schools. In the six 11-player championship games in which a private school played against a public school, the public school won four of those games. The Southern Section has 560 member schools of which around 60 percent are public schools and 40 percent are private schools.
• Canyon’s boys basketball team, ranked No. 2 in Orange County behind Mater Dei and 11-1 after a 77-58 nonleague win over Cypress on Wednesday, has lost starting guard Josh Goodall for the season because Goodall broke a leg in a freakish way, by landing feet-first on a basketball. The Comanches have plenty of depth so look for Canyon to contend as usual for the championship of the always tough Crestview League.
• It’s difficult to rank high school teams in every sport. Basketball is among the more difficult. An example why: Canyon lost to La Serna by five points; Cypress beat La Serna by four points; Canyon beat Cypress by 19 points.
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