Prospects often continue to take visits after committing to a school. Dan Lanning explained his philosophy on this development.
There is an interesting debate that’s taken place over the past few years when it comes to high school prospects who continue to take recruiting visits to other schools after they’ve already announced their verbal commitment. It’s understandably a topic of conversation that has some real pros and cons, depending on which side of the fence you stand.
On the one hand, some people feel that a prospect, although verbally committed somewhere, should have the opportunity to get out and see as many schools as they can to make sure that they are confident in the choice that they’ve made. As a coach, I suppose it makes sense that you’d want to feel confident that your player is 100% confident in their decision to come to your school.
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On the other hand, it feels completely fair that a coach wouldn’t want a player who is committed to his team having eyes for other schools. Many would argue that if you still have an interest in looking at other schools, then you may have committed too early in the first place.
We’ve seen coaches take hard stances on this issue in the past. For instance, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables has a “no visit” rule that he’s implemented, stressing to players that he encourages them to look around and take all of the visits they want, but once they’ve committed, there won’t be any lack of loyalty going forward.
For the Oregon Ducks, there have been some recent visits announced from current commits this spring, with a couple of the top players in Oregon’s 2024 class heading elsewhere to take a look around. 4-star OT Fox Crader committed to the Ducks in November of last year, but he has 8 unofficial visits lined up across the country this spring, including schools like Georgia, Alabama, LSU, and USC. Oregon’s 4-star WR Jordan Anderson has also said that he plans to take a few unofficial visits this spring as well, hoping to see schools like Colorado, Tenessee, and USC.
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With all of that in my mind, I asked Oregon head coach Dan Lanning on Saturday what his philosophy on commits taking visits. Here’s what he had to say:
“I think each situation is different,” Lanning said. “Certainly we love having committed players be committed to us and not take trips to other places, but they need to know where they’re going when it’s all said and done and they have to have a great feel for that. It’s our job to continue to recruit them to be here. You know, like I said before, I probably wasn’t my wife’s first choice, but over time, I won her over. We have to do the same thing when it comes to recruiting, and just continue to keep doing that same thing.”
In a perfect world, you’d have players look around, decide they want to play for your team, and commit without any second thought. We don’t live in a perfect world, though. Recruiting flips take place across the nation every year — Oregon flipped a handful of players this past year to bolster their recruiting class — and it’s just become a part of the game.
The reality of it now is that recruitment doesn’t stop at the commitment. With other schools still trying hard to flip players after their verbal commitments, the coaching staff has to stay diligent and make sure that they keep everyone in the loop until they sign their letters of intent. Even then, the recruitment still must go on, with the transfer portal offering a way out for players if they grow unhappy at any point.
It all sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?
Ultimately, Lanning’s philosophy is respectable. He knows that players are going to want to try and make sure they’ve made the right decision on committing to Oregon, but if he can, he wants to try to limit the number of visits to other schools. Who wouldn’t want to do the same? In the end, fans just need to feel confident that the Ducks can hold onto some of their best players, despite them visiting other schools. So far, we have very little reason to believe that this will be a major problem going forward.
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