Last April, the NCAA Division I Council made changes to the rules that govern the recruiting of prospective student-athletes, effectively moving the calendar forward 11 months for the class of 2020. As athletes are now able to take official visits to campuses beginning in September of their junior year, we’ve seen more verbal commitments taking place earlier than in years past. When we published this early look at the 2019 database in late June 2018, we marveled that there were already 154 names on the list. A year earlier, there had been just 82 rising high school seniors who had made verbal pledges to collegiate programs. On July 1st, 2016, the total number of verbal commitments for the class of 2017 was 28.
This year, in April, we’ve got 170 names in the database. That includes 18 of the girls and 14 of the boys on our list of top-20 recruits from the class of 2020. (NOTE: If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected]. Do not leave it in the comments below.)
- Way Too Early List of Girls from the Class of 2020
- Way Too Early List of Boys from the Class of 2020
Here are the colleges that have received early pledges:
2020 Verbal Commitments (M&W combined)
| Alabama – 1 | Indiana – 4 | NC State – 10 | Texas – 9 |
| Arizona – 1 | Iowa – 2 | North Carolina – 2 | Texas A&M – 5 |
| Arizona State – 2 | Kansas – 1 | Northern Arizona – 1 | USC – 9 |
| Auburn – 16 | Kentucky – 3 | Northwestern – 2 | Utah – 1 |
| Boise State – 1 | Louisville – 7 | Notre Dame – 4 | Vanderbilt – 1 |
| Cal – 7 | LSU – 3 | Ohio State – 3 | Virginia – 10 |
| Duke – 1 | Miami (FL) – 1 | Penn State – 1 | Virginia Tech – 2 |
| Florida – 7 | Miami (OH) – 1 | Pitt – 1 | West Virginia – 3 |
| Florida State – 1 | Michigan – 12 | Purdue – 1 | Wisconsin – 8 |
| Georgia – 3 | Minnesota – 4 | South Carolina – 4 | |
| Georgia Tech – 3 | Missouri – 1 | Tennessee – 10 |
Our SwimSwam Commitment Databases give a snapshot of where the collegiate swimmers are coming from and where they are going. As always, you can sort by club team, college, conference, home state, school, LSC, etc. We are updating the database constantly, so remember to refresh it regularly.
High School Class of 2020 Verbal Commitments
High School Class of 2019 Commitments
High School Class of 2018 Commitments
NOTE: If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
Notre Dame definitely has more than 4 combined 2020 verbals now, might be 8 already?
Class of 2020, kind of the guinea-pig class of college swimming.
On the 2019 commits, Jack Warden should be listed under Princeton instead of Brown.
Megan Deuel has committed to Notre Dame for the class of 2020. She’s probably in the top 100 of that class.
Since Stanford admissions typically come out late, might be indicative that Regan Smith and Lillie Nordmann from the women’s top 20 recruits may be waiting for that? That being said, the whole class of 2020 seem to have committed way earlier that previous classes so who knows.
Auburn seems to be the only one that picked up a full class before the end of junior year… wonder how they managed to reel them in so early?? Not implying anything (also don’t know anything), but it sure is weird that it’s Auburn of all schools with the highest number of verbals here.
Auburn has a lot of scholarships since many of the swimmers with scholarships has left the school. They haven’t got the best recruits, but they’re still not bad either.
Also, look at some of the other double digit classes…. Virginia, NC State as well as Auburn… all come from the same coaching tree.
Auburn being Auburn
Based on experience, Auburn also is able to more easily supplement with academic money
Gracie Felner also committed to Cal a while back.