Community Corner
College Football: Advantages of an Early Signing Day
There has recently been a lot of buzz around college football seriously considering having an early signing period. There have been numerous articles on the topic, as well as many major college football coaches expressing their own opinion on this topic. As a former college coach for over 30 years, this is something that has been on my radar for a long time now, and I am all for an early signing period.
As it stands in college football, young men sign their National Letter of Intent, (or NLI), the first Wednesday of February. The majority of these young men knew where they wanted to go and where they would sign months – for some, even years – before this date. Why make them wait? Most college coaches have had their recruiting classes locked in well before the season starts and have already moved on to the next year’s class – why make them wait, too?
Most importantly, with an early signing period, these kids can eliminate the pressure and distraction of committing to the school of their choice, and enjoy their senior season, (and the same goes for their high school coach!). Give these guys a chance to focus on their team. And if a student-athlete isn’t ready to commit during the early period, or if a coach isn’t ready to offer, then those cases can wait until February if need be. Another positive consequence, I believe, of the early signing day would be college coaches will be much less free with the scholarship offer.
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So how would this work? I’ve created a proposal for implementing an early signing period in college football. The only major change is that student-athletes would have the option to sign on Early Signing Day, the last Wednesday of June, or on the traditional Signing Day, the first Wednesday of February.
The below table offers a glance at how this would look when worked in with current NCAA recruiting periods and dates for college football. The orange font denotes where additions I would make to the current calendar in order to implement an early signing day. These dates are specific to the 2014-2015 season.
