May 2011: J.J. Denman, Pennsbury offensive lineman, gives an oral commitment to Penn State.
October: Denman changes his mind and commits to Wisconsin.
January: Denman changes his mind, again, and commits to Rutgers.
I don't know the young man, so I'll ask: Does J.J. stand for Just Joking?
I'll give him some slack, though, for one of the two changes of heart.
July 2011: Gunner Kiel, quarterback at Columbus East High in Indiana, commits to Indiana University.
October: Kiel withdraws his commitment.
December: Kiel commits to LSU.
January: Kiel changes his mind, again, and enrolls at Notre Dame.
The Irish better hope that Kiel is more decisive than this in the pocket.
Denman and Kiel have done nothing wrong, by NCAA standards.
These are oral commitments. They're not binding. Nothing becomes binding until the athletes sign official letters of intent, and that signing period doesn't begin until Wednesday. After that, they would face a penalty, getting sidelined for a season, for backing out of a commitment.
I also realize that high school recruits are 17- and 18-year-olds who reserve the right to change their minds, especially when it comes to a major decision such as picking a college.
But something needs to change.
What Denman and Kiel have done is wrong on a couple of levels.
It isn't fair to the college programs they've left behind.
It isn't fair to other high school recruits who play the same positions and might have been looking at the same schools as Denman and Kiel.
When Kiel announced that he would go to Indiana, were there any other high school quarterbacks who were being recruited by the Hoosiers and wanted to go to Indiana, but looked elsewhere and committed elsewhere, because they weren't confident that they eventually would beat out Kiel for the starting job?
Were there high school seniors in that same situation with LSU, for the very short period that Kiel was an "LSU commit"?
Did Indiana and LSU lose out on any other quarterback prospects because the two schools were confident they had Kiel in their grasp?
You can raise the same questions with Denman, and with Penn State and Wisconsin and those programs' recruiting along the offensive line.
And - who knows? - Denman might not be through with his college selection. After all, mere days after Denman chose Rutgers, Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano left last Thursday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Something has to be done to make athletes take oral commitments more seriously.
Here's one idea:
