Early signing period for football gains steam
UGA’s Mark Richt and Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson appear to be on opposite sides of college football’s proposal for an early signing period.
The proposal, which has a decent chance of passing, will be considered this June by an NCAA-related committee – the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA), which consists of the 32 commissioners of Division I.
If adopted, the new early signing period for football would take affect later this year for 2016 recruits, an NCAA spokesman said. There would be a 72-hour signing period beginning on Dec. 16, along with the football’s regular signing period in February.
Richt, like most of the SEC’s coaches, doesn’t appear to support the proposal.
“I don’t know about an early signing period,” Richt said. “I just don’t know how that would affect our recruiting calendar. I think there are always unintended consequences when you change rules — or if you make a new one. And I think it’s just the uncertainty of what it would do to that recruiting calendar, as far as speeding things up even more than how they are today.”
If there was an early signing period this past year, it might’ve taken some pressure off UGA. The Bulldogs had 19 recruits from the eventual 29-member class committed by last December. Nevetheless, Richt has his reasons for feeling differently, and it has more to do with his current players than future ones.
“I do think coaches want to coach their team during the season — and make sure we’re doing everything we can to be prepared for our ballgames and for our season,” Richt said.
“Moving up the signing date might increase the number of official visits in the season. People might start wanting to do official visits in the summer. I just don’t know what would happen with any unintended consequences with that decision.”
Meanwhile, Tech’s Johnson sits on the same side as many non-SEC coaches. He is a longtime proponent of an early signing period, and thinks it would eliminate a lot of the “foolishness” of the recruiting process.
“I think it’s good … If you didn’t want to sign early, you wouldn’t have to do it,” Johnson said. “There’s nothing that says ‘I’ve got to sign early.’ You could go all the way up until February if you wanted. But the guys who want to sign and have been committed for 18 months, and know they want to go to school there, this will take care of that. It would help everybody. It would stop all the foolishness.”
“When a kid went in and said ‘I’m committing,’ then the college would say ‘OK, here (are the papers to sign).’ And then (on the flip side), it would stop the colleges from making a billion bogus offers. (Nowadays) it’s like ‘You’ve got an offer from us, but it’s non-committable.’ What is that?”
Several coaches weighed in, exclusively to the AJC:
- Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze: "I'm not for the December early signing period. I think that's a bad idea. I've been very vocal about that. The high school coaches are going to hate us. Kids are going to go on four or five visits during the season. They're going to come back on late Sunday night, and be awful for their high school team because all of us are going to try to lock them up in the early signing period now."
- South Carolina's Steve Spurrier: "I've got mixed emotions on it. I don't particularly like it because I think we're going to be recruiting during the season again. I think a lot of high school kids are going to have their name in the paper every week about what school they are going to pick instead of the newspapers writing about the players on our current team right now. And I've always felt like during the season, that time should belong to the players on your team. Then there is time for recruiting before and after the season. But I think they are going to go ahead and pass it. … We'll live with it."
- Clemson's Dabo Swinney: "I have been huge proponent … I think it would just clean up a lot of the culture that we have out there – de-commits, commits, coaches offering guys and not taking them. Some coaches offer kids, then they continue to recruit others, then they call a guy and back out on him at the last minute."
- Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy: "I think (it) will be good … if you have a young man who is committed to your school, he might as well go ahead and sign. If he doesn't sign, then that means he is not really committed. Then we won't spend that much time traveling to that particular location. It's time and money, airplane flights, rental cars and hotels. It's good for the budgets of your athletic departments, but it's also good (for the recruits) … We've talked about this for a number of years. But I think this time it will happen."
- Florida's Jim McElwain: "I think there's a lot of merit to it … I think it will really help in the long run, yet part of what happens is going to be tough. Think about us, coming in late (this year after being hired at Florida in December), how hard that would've been for us to get an opportunity to recruit some of these guys (if there was an early period). I think it's one of those things that is needed, but I'm not sure any of us know the ramifications will be once it goes down."
- Miami's Al Golden: "It's a start. I will take it. I've been adamant about it. I think we're in desperate need for it. I think it kind of reintroduces the word 'commitment' to the football coaching community – recruits, along with college and high school coaches."
- Arkansas coach Bret Bielema: "I love the early signing period just for two reasons. First, it allows the kid who wants to come and be somewhere to go ahead and sign. … And then the second thing (is that it) clears up the recruiting process for the people who want to get it cleared up. I think there are too many times where there's so much time in there, some doubt can begin to creep into those minds of kids where they have been 100-percent committed for so long … and it gets a kid in a bad situation, and just leads to confusion."
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