I believe Brown had half of UT's latest class committed before Halloween. Spike Dykes offers a good example. When Spike was the head coach at Texas Tech, he made no great effort to get these early-early commitments. He always said he wanted to know as much as he could find out about a youngster before signing him. You need that extra time to study and evaluate, Spike maintained.
Some youngsters develop more quickly than others.
Spike wanted to have scholarships available for those late-bloomers. Conversely, he didn't want a scholarship committed to a youngster who suddenly had lost interest in football for whatever reason. A third major change involves the numbers. Twenty-five is now the magic number although some schools are able to sign a few more one year by signing a few less than 25 the previous year. But for the most part, NCAA rules limit schools to no more than 25 new football scholarships annually, and no more than a total of 85 players on football scholarship in any one season.