🏈 Early Signing Period debate

[shipley00]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/r...caa-considering-early-signing-period-football

It's been a water cooler debate amongst my coworkers and I for the last few years. I see advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage to the kids that KNOW where they want to go. Period. They commit, and the phone calls stop.

Disadvantage to the kids that haven't really thought it through and get pressure to attend a school from coaches, friends, family or community. They're locked in then.

Advantage to coaches who recruit early, the less negative recruiting plays a part.

Disadvantage to coaches who recruit hard year round (see first disadvantage).

Advantage to coaches that only recruit for part of the year (Duck hunting anyone?)

Disadvantage to kids who commit to a program, say in August only to have that coaching staff canned in December.

Disadvantage to coaches who actually evaluate year round (and not wait to see who other schools are going after), especially if you put the early signing period in the summer before the camps.

 

[psychojoe]

I would like to see an early period and a late period, as baskball does. I know ESPN will not like it, as their signing day special will not be as dramatic.

 

[TerryP]

I want to use the term "opening Pandora's Box" here but it just doesn't fit. It's not a situation where they would be getting into something they have very little control over.

I do see it as a situation where one rule change ends up requiring A LOT of other rule changes and we end up some major conflicts.

<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention --> @shipley00 <!-- END TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention --> touches on one that you can easily add a few other notes when he mentions it's a "disadvantage to kids who commit to a program, say in August only to have that coaching staff canned in December." What about coaches who receive commitments from kids who hear the name Sherlock Holmes and think it's a housing project? With the limits of 25, if that kid is a non-qualifier, does that mean the team is left with only 24 initials?

Some will argue the school should know how the kid is doing academically but how are they supposed to know that if the spring recruiting/evaluation period is off-limits to the head coach? It would seem adding an early signing period would mean they'd have to reverse the ruling about spring evals, right?

Two things of note in this report:

1) I'm leery of the CAA making decisions for the five main conferences considering it's a committee of commissioners from 32 different conferences.

2) "I know the [Southeastern Conference] coaches are not in favor of changing the recruiting calendar," Kentucky's Mark Stoops said in January. "If things start moving up, it changes the way we've been doing things for a long time." — That could mean a lot of things, including only 8 of 14 being against a rule change. More importantly, outside of what he's stated about a change in the calendar, what else?