Early Signing Period - Will it Happen?

For most college football fans, the first Wednesday in February takes on a special significance. That is the day when high school athletes sign letters of intent and cement where they will spend their college years. It is Signing Day. However, for some schools surprise decommitments mar the day. Some have suggested that the NCAA should adopt an early signing period for football, as it does for basketball. However, is such a move really a good one for the college game? Here, CGB will take a look at the pros, cons, and likelihood of such a decision.

A primary driving force for utilizing an early signing period would be the fact that it would save college programs money in their recruiting budgets. If prospects were allowed to sign in December, for example, schools would no longer have to recruit their entire class for that extra two months. While the message boards love to speculate whether or not a five star recruit will switch his commitment or not, the recruiting battle may be stretching the competing teams’ resources thin.

In addition, an early signing period would help lessen the talent gap between top tier programs and the rest of college football. In general, the flow of decommitments is to the higher prestige programs. A good example from the 2008 recruiting season was Roy Roundtree, who was committed to Purdue for over eight months before switching to Michigan on Signing Day. While the Wolverines would have had a fine recruiting year with or without Roundtree, his loss was a major hit to Purdue’s class, one which was somewhat disappointing to begin with. If there was an early signing period, Roundtree would likely be playing in West Lafayette next season, not in Ann Arbor for a conference rival.

While the positives of an early signing date make it appear attractive at first glance, there are also a couple of key negatives that must be taken into account. First, the early date takes away some flexibility from the prospects themselves. Inevitably, there will be players pressured every year into signing early, even though they themselves do not feel totally confident about their choice. In these cases, losing an extra couple of months to evaluate and visit schools is a real detriment to the prospect, especially when he is making such an important decision.

A second, and much more important, negative is the fact that there is an inherent difference between football and basketball. College basketball does have an early signing period in November, which most of the nation’s top prospects use to sign letters of intent. However, in basketball evaluation is really a year round process, as AAU games and all-star camps take place during the summer. Football is a much different animal, as it is unrealistic to expect players to play the game all year long. Therefore, the high school season is much more important for football evaluation than it is for basketball. Because of this fact, in many cases both the school and the prospect need the extra time between an early and late signing date. This allows the school to take a closer look at a player’s film, and does not force the player to work official visits into his already packed fall schedule.

As you can see, both sides can make decent arguments about the issue of an early signing date. Regardless, at the moment the odds of it happening are slim. The main reason for this is the fact that the teams with the most to lose are the teams who make the most money. While Arizona and Iowa might be in favor of an early signing date, USC and Ohio State would likely not agree. In addition, the fact is that the current system is not really “broken”, so there is no pressing need to change it. Therefore, expect to relive the Signing Day frenzy, at least for the foreseeable future.