OK, how common is it to verbally commit before visiting the campus, and then doing the official visit after committing?

It is very common especially when recruits commit early. Many will have gone on an unofficial visits, but the official visit will may entail a game or two and over night stay with players.

Rob,
Verbally committing before an official visit is fairly common, especially if players have taken unofficial visits prior.

However I am not sure I would advise my player to commit before seeing where he will be possibly spending the next four years of his life.

In my opinion, there is a lot more involved in the college experience than playing baseball. The fit has to be right for all aspects, not just the sport they will be involved in.

As stated above, very common.

I know of several kids who deliberately delayed their official visit until later (e.g. in the fall).

Official reason was they wanted to go while school was in session to really get a feel for the place.

Unofficial reason was they wanted to go to a football game or in one case a basketball game.

08

Official visits must be taken after classes start in the fall.

My player only took two official visits. Although very familiar with both coaching staffs for many months, he felt he needed to visit to help in the decisison (although already visited one school).
He picked up on some key things that were improtant to him. At one school the entire team hung together like a fraternity, at the other, he didn't meet too many of the team players. He didn't like one school because he felt it was too spread out and too many enrolled (huge lecture classes of 300+) at another school he liked the smaller classroom sizes. At one school the facilities were most likely one of the best in the country, the other school great facilities but in a much smaller town, one school was closer and one was farther away, one offered more than the other. One school's atendance during baseball was more than the other, these things really helped him to determine which would be the best fit, although he will admit that he prefered then in state females to out of state females.

Official visits during football season can be tough. Football season at some schools is very different than baseball season. A player verbally committing without seeing the school before the signing period can withdraw his commitment before signing his NLI, after signing you can't. Most players that committ early and sign early can take their visits anytime they wish within the next year.

Some of your larger programs that have mostly early commitments will use the official visit to bring the group in and allow a bonding of sorts with that class of commitments.

Agree with lafmom.

Unfortunately the current rules on the timing of official visits are behind the curve. Many programs come close to lining up their entire recruiting classes before fall of those kids' senior years even hits. The NCAA would probably like to push against the early commitment trend, not submit to it, but in all candor things are going to continue in that direction irrespective of what the NCAA does or does not do.

I agree with TPM of course that it's madness to commit before you see the place, but typically that is still done, using unofficial visits, both on organized "junior days" and individually.

Our experience with the fall official visit was that the guys who had given handshake commitments were brought in for a committed recruits weekend. The HS seniors were parceled out to players to stay in their dorm rooms or off-campus housing for 2 nights, while parents were put up in a nearby hotel. There were football tickets, a brunch, and a dinner provided. Some times this can be timed to coincide with the fall scrimmage games that typically wrap up fall practices as well.

It was a positive experience for the kids to meet their future teammates. Some of them already knew each other but others did not. Also, many of the parents got to know those they'd be sharing bleacher seats with in the future as well.