Football recruits are getting younger. 12 freshman and sophomores in Washington have Division I offers

College football recruits are getting younger.

In Washington alone, there are 12 players who are currently high school sophomores and freshman who have at least one Division I offer. Expect that trend to continue to grow, says Brandon Huffman, the national recruiting editor at 247Sports.com.

Huffman said the big reason athletes are recruited earlier is because they can ink their verbal commitments earlier, and plenty take advantage of that option.

Last year was the first of the NCAA’s newly implemented early signing period, which allows football recruits to sign their national letters of intent in December instead of waiting until February. This year’s early period is set for Dec. 19-21.

“We now have the early signing period — which is only two months, but makes a difference — and the early visit period,” Huffman said.

Five recruits in the South Sound — Fife’s MJ Ale (Washington), Auburn Mountainview’s Talan Alfrey (BYU), Olympia’s Corbin Hartsock (Eastern Washington), Emerald Ridge’s Mosiah Nasili-Liu (UW) and Sumner’s Ben Wilson (TCU) — opted to sign early in 2017.

Another reason for ramped up recruiting? College coaches are getting earlier looks at athletes, in and out of the high school.

“There are more freshman playing on varsity than there used to be,” Huffman said. “And, I think there’s more awareness of kids now because you have 7-on-7 and you have offseason football. 7-on-7 coaches are bringing more soon-to-be high schoolers to college camps than they were before.”

More players who are now sophomores — and are part of a 2021 class that could be the state’s best ever — had breakout freshman seasons. Nine players in that class have a combined 37 offers.

Kennedy Catholic’s Sam Huard led the state in passing last season, throwing for 3,432 yards and 34 touchdowns as a starting freshman, and was named the MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year.

He is on pace to eclipse that mark, throwing for more than 2,300 yards and 24 touchdowns in his first five games as a sophomore, and picked up offers from Boise State, California, Tennessee and Texas Tech in the last two weeks to bring his total to seven.

Eastside Catholic’s J.T. Tuimoloau, who is considered the No. 1 player in the nation in his class, has 12 offers, including one from Alabama.

South Sound players ranked in the top 50 nationally in their class have also had plenty of early recruiting interest. Lincoln’s Julien Simon has six offers, including two from the SEC, Steilacoom’s Emeka Egbuka has four, including one from Florida this week, and Bethel’s Will Latu has two, including a recent offer from Arizona State.

Kennedy Catholic’s Jabez Tinae has four Pac-12 offers, while teammate Junior Alexander has an offer from Sacramento State. Garfield’s Antwan Brown has drawn an offer from Arizona, and Mount Si’s Clay Millen already holds an offer from Oregon, though he’s played limited varsity snaps behind older brother Cale Millen, who committed to the Ducks in May.

Meanwhile, three freshmen in the state — Kennedy Catholic’s Kieran Collins, Eastside Catholic’s Dishawn Misa and Rainier Beach’s Tyrone Taylor — each have an FBS offer despite being just five games into their high school careers.

Many players in the state work with offseason programs like Ford Sports Performance, Heir Football Academy and RISE Football Academy, which increases exposure.

“There’s an ability to watch these guys play more than just when they have high school film out,” Huffman said.

Though verbal offers have increased for younger players in recent years, Huffman says the word “offer” has taken on a different meaning. Verbal offers are never binding until a recruit signs their letter of intent, but some offers now hold less weight than others.

“The word offer means something so much different from five years ago, and certainly a lot different than 15 years ago,” Huffman said. “Five years ago it meant it was mostly legit. Fifteen years ago, the word ‘offer’ didn’t get said unless it was 100 percent legit.”

This group of freshman and sophomores has the most early offers in state history, Huffman says, because coaches want to jump on players who could grow to be elite players before other schools do.

“Essentially the verbal offer has replaced the early interest letter,” he said.

Because recruiting is so cutthroat, Huffman says, many Division I schools opt to offer in bunches. Freshmen in the country have a collective 107 offers from 52 FBS programs, according to 247Sports, with Baylor leading the way, already extending offers to 10 players in the 2022 class.

The number of offers is exponentially bigger in the 2021 class, with 1,458 extended from 112 FBS schools. Of the 130 FBS schools, 53 have offered 10 or more players in this year’s sophomore class, with Tennessee (50), Michigan (44), Syracuse (44), Kentucky (41) and Florida (40) offering the most.

Only 17 FBS schools have yet to offer a player in the 2021 or 2022 classes, with Northwestern and Stanford being the only Power Five schools included in that category.

“Any competitive advantage a college coach can get, they’ll take it,” Huffman said. “If it means offering a kid before he’s every played a varsity down, so be it. ... It could mean the world if that player turns out to be as good as you think he’s going to be when you offer him that early.”