Official scholarship offers will look much different in rev-share era

Kentucky's black alternate Wildcat helmet - Dr. Michael Huang, Kentucky Sports Radio

A major part of the football recruiting calendar always arrived in August when schools sent out official scholarship offers to high school prospects. This served as proof of who coaching staffs were really targeting after the summer commitment blitz. Commits would receive these offers and post them on social media but so would uncommitted players. The same goes for committed players that programs were trying to flip.

The official scholarship offer bonanza is not going away but it will be much different this year as we enter our first college football season of the rev-share era.

Starting on Friday, programs can send contract offer term sheets to high school prospects. Players will not be able to sign these until the early signing period in December but this will show in writing what they can expect to receive financially from the university. There will be room for negotiations down the road, but prospects could learn quickly if the promises made during the recruiting process actually show up in writing.

Athletic departments will now have $20.5 million to share with student-athletes. How that money is dispersed is up to each individual institution. Football programs at each power conference school will get a lion’s share of this salary cap to use in roster-building. The NIL market will still be around but all of those deals must be approved by the College Sports Commission. The rev-share dollars won’t need to be approved and will serve as the primary contract for players.

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Prospects and their representation will get a chance to see where they actually stand when these offers come out. There is an expectation that we could see some additional moving and shaking via decommitments if these contract terms do not align with what was sold in June during the official visit blitz. That could make in-season recruiting a more interesting follow than usual.

The new age is here. There will likely be some unintended consequences as everyone adjust to this new way of doing business.