Laravel 5 input old is empty

Your problem looks like you are not actually submitting the username in the first place:

<form role="form" method="POST" action="{{route('signUpPost')}}"> 
        <input type="text" class="form-control" name="username" value="{{ old('username') }}">
</form>

There is no 'submit' button inside the form. If you submit outside the form - then the username will not be included.

Add the submit button inside your form - then try again

<form role="form" method="POST" action="{{route('signUpPost')}}"> 
        <input type="text" class="form-control" name="username" value="{{ old('username') }}">
        <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

Edit - also your controller is wrong. It should be this:

 return redirect()->route('signUp')->withInput();

All you are missing is to Flash the Input to the session. This is so it's available during the next request.

     $request->flash();

Do that just before calling to View your form.

Source: http://laravel.com/docs/5.1/requests#old-input