Mission kids are like grey shirt kids, they can go to school prior to their mission as long as they do not go full time. Additionally, while going to school part time they are on their own dime. It the kid did go to school full time, once they leave for their mission their clock stops until they come back. ISU recruits mission kids offering scholarships to them when they return from their mission rarely letting them play prior to the mission. When the kid is on his mission the scholarship is given to someone else. It requires the head coach to keep tabs on who they have offered and who is on the mission at that time. I don't believe Kramer knew anything about using the mission system prior to coming to ISU, neither MSU or EW have a large LDS population in their area. There are some hazards to giving mission kids scholarships. It is difficult to build your recruiting around kids who leave for two years that may or may not come back to play football. Priorities change, kids get sick, or they just may go somewhere else to school. Even BYU only gets about half that leave back on the team. The last couple of years Kramer has began using mission kids kinda like other schools use grey shirt kids; as a way to sign more players each year.
