Sweet Feet is right if it is an official contact for an official offer. As you all know many players pay to go to camps with certain schools and coaches and then pay to go on unofficial visits. The player can verbally commit anytime and I heard a joke (I hope) that one dad committed his newborn to a certain ACC program! If you look at sites like TopDrawerSoccer (I am not a fan of this site) they list committments for the players they have reviewed. These committments are loaded by the players themselves and often a player will verbally commit to 2 or 3 schools to see who makes the best offer, sort of like fishing, because nothing is certain until they sign. If a player has been offered a position on a team as a "recruited walkon" then no early or preliminary committment is necessary and no NLI is necessary. I know of some D1 players that never made verbal committments up until they signed. I know coaches want early committments to make their recruiting job and travel easier, but in effect, committments aren't really necessary. However, they do make for good press. In pointy football they mean very little depending on the coaching situation and many comittments change during the senior year if there are coaching changes, a la Auburn, Ole Miss, Tennessee, etc. Just rambling.
