College football has three seasons to die-hard fans: the regular season, spring practice and recruiting season.
National Signing Day has become as anticipated as some games for college football fans, especially fans of schools in the SEC. On the first Wednesday of February, senior high school prospects sign their National Letters of Intent and become official members of the school and program.
Paul Jones, Bulldawgs247.com publisher, said people want constant updates on kids every day.
“Even though things don’t change every day, people still want to read news about those final guys on somebody’s radar as you get closer to National Signing Day,” Jones said.
For the days, weeks, months and even years leading up to a senior prospect’s signing day, the process is full of uncertainty.  A player can make a verbal commitment at any point during his recruitment, but nothing binds the prospect to sign with that school.  Similarly, a coach can rescind a prospect’s scholarship offer for any reason before NSD.
Out of 349 official signees in the SEC announced on Feb. 6, a total of 92 prospects made multiple verbal commitments during their recruitment. Thirty-four of those prospects were originally committed to another SEC program. The numbers could be larger because some prospects choose not to make their commitments public until NSD.
A prospect can switch his commitment for numerous reasons. The most likely scenario is a coaching change, whether it is the head coach or a position coach. Another likely scenario occurs when a prospect accepts the first scholarship offered to him instead of waiting for more offers later in the process.
“I think a lot of kids jump on that first offer and not realize that other offers are going to be down the road,” Jones said. “A lot of kids end up flipping to an SEC school because that’s pretty much where every recruit in this region wants to play.”
Coaching changes have both a positive and negative effect in recruiting. For example, Auburn and Tennessee had 10 and nine prospects respectively switch their commitments to another D-1 program.
While Mississippi State did not experience a coaching change, it did have seven decommitments in the class of 2013, including three to SEC schools.
Mullen said a prospect’s mindset when taking visits to other schools is important to consider.  Some prospects use their five official visits as free vacations, while others take a more serious approach to other campuses.  Mullen said the ones who take an open mind on official visits to other schools are the ones who cause concern.
“It’s hard to view those guys as really committed anymore at that point.  You have to look around and make sure you are balancing out your class and what you need,” Mullen said.
The prize recruit for MSU in this year’s class was five-star defensive end Chris Jones from Houston, Miss.  Jones, who is rated as high as the No. 2 prospect in the nation by 247Sports.com, appeared to be flirting with the idea of switching his commitment to Ole Miss after taking multiple visits to Oxford in January. Mullen, however, said Jones was honest with him throughout the whole process.
“He’s a 17-year-old kid.  Some of these kids, I bet if you expanded recruiting out a couple more weeks, they might take a couple more visits,” Mullen said. “I think he wants to go have a good time. It’s always hard to judge what’s going on in a 17-year-old’s mind from minute to minute sometimes.”
Despite the larger reasons for a prospect switching commitments before NSD, some recruits use other criteria when choosing a better school.
“I have actually heard a kid decommit because he liked another school’s colors better,” Jones said.  “They matched his high school colors, and he didn’t want to change all his clothing.”