Boise State Letter of Intent Day Show: 2007

National Letter of Intent Signing Day is the first day that a high school football player can accept an athletic scholarship to play for the college or university of his choice. Most schools schedule a Press Conference and Booster party to celebrate, sometimes as a combined event, but often as separate events. Boise State's party, however, is open to everybody.. and this year will be jam-packed!

National Letter of Intent Signing Day is the first day that a high school football player can accept an athletic scholarship to play for the college or university of his choice. College Football National Letter of Intent Signing Day for Graduating High School seniors is the first Wednesday of February. Schools receive the athlete’s Signed Letter of Intent by fax during the morning and early afternoon. Once the faxed signed LOI is received, the school adds the students’ name and bio to their press release.

Most schools schedule a Press Conference and Booster party to celebrate, sometimes as a combined event, but often as separate events. Local sports talk radio stations sponsor local booster events in their cities.

College Football Fans take the Letter of Intent Signing Day very seriously. Many take a Personal Leave day or even call in sick to attend the events of the day! The comment most heard is "This is better than Christmas" and "Why don’t they just make LOI Signing Day a National holiday, so I don’t have to use my vacation days"?

Before the Internet, college football fans relied on their local newspapers, radio and television stations for all their recruiting news. After the Internet became a popular source of information, ambitious fans could scour the online newspapers and sports websites to accumulate their own lists of recruits. Over the last few years, Recruiting websites have evolved and have become so popular, that almost all Division 1A schools have sports fan websites that have very detailed recruiting information including a list of verbal commitments. The diehard fan prints off his own list of verbal commitments to compare with the actual press releases from his school at the LOI Day parties.

Watch the visitor counts rise on the recruiting sports forums on LOI day. Sometimes the bandwidth cannot handle the demand. All die-hard college football fans want to know which players committed to their school and which local high school stars went to other schools. There are very sophisticated rating systems that rank each school in their own conferences and on a national basis. Five Star recruits and One Star recruits show up on the commit lists. Who will be the next major football star at your school? It gives all the fans a lot to talk about for the following weeks until football season actually begins again.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the first Boise LOI Signing Day Show and Party. Jeff Cave and Larry Polowski co hosted a local weekly sports talk show on KTIK called Idaho Sports Talk that covered local sports including Boise State University and University of Idaho sports. KTIK started a website that included sports forums for BSU and Idaho sports fans. Many of the current BroncoCountry.com posters started posting on the original KTIK sports forums along with my Idaho and Utah State college football fans. Feedback from the callers on IST and the posters on the sports forums showed an interest to start a live broadcast show for Letter of Intent Signing Day.

The first LOI Signing Day Show was started in February 1998 by Jeff Caves of KTIK 1350AM with a live broadcast from Busters on Broadway. Coach Dirk Koetter was the newly hired football coach at Boise State. Coach K was there with his assistant coaches and a small crowd of Boosters from Boise State and the University of Idaho who were there to find out which new recruits were signed by their respective schools. The show started at 4:00 and I arrived around 2:30 to watch Jeff and Larry Polowski set up. There was just me, Larry, Jeff and Kirk from Circle K until the show started. The first KTIK LOI show at Busters still had seats remaining at the end of the show.

KTIK moved the show to the Sports Zone downtown Boise in 1999. I remember meeting Rafter and BroncoMX along with Vandal Randal and a large group of Vandal fans at the Sports Zone for that show. The show returned to Busters in 2000 where it remained until 2004. The BroncoCountry.com posters have always promoted the LOI Signing Day Show and most of the crowd is made up of BroncoCountry.com posters. The show became so popular at Busters that fans would arrive when Busters opened in the morning and would stay till until the end of the show at 6:00. Fans that left work early in the afternoon were upset that Busters was already full and they ended up in the parking lot listening to the show.

Vandal fans quit coming to the show as Bronco fans took over all the seats at Busters. The show outgrew Busters and was moved to The Big Easy in 2005.

This will be the third year at the Big Easy for the LOI Signing Day Show. Boise State football fans will start lining up an hour before the doors open at the Big Easy, and then scramble to find strategic locations to view the show. The show will feature Boise State Football coaches discussing the players that they will be coaching the next four to five years. Video Highlights of each player will be shown as the BSU coaches talk about each recruit. The show will also have press releases from the University of Idaho, and other WAC members. The show will be broadcast by KTIK 1350 AM from 3:00 to 6:00. Jeff Caves, the founder of the show will continue his hosting duties along with Statesman’s Sports Editor, Mike Prater. The KTIK Ticket Chicks will also be there to liven up the show.

Come down and join other Bronco fans for the show on Wednesday, February 7th. Plan on spending the day at the Big Easy. If you can’t make it down, be sure to listen to the show starting at 3:00 on KTIK 1350AM.