Rival Views: Should there be an early signing period?

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney don’t always see eye to eye. In this edition of Rival Views, the two debate whether there should be an early signing period, as recently proposed by the NCAA.

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I’ve always been in favor of an early signing period and, while I prefer August and then the traditional first Wednesday of February, I’m fine with anything that will help ease the pressure on recruits. The NCAA is proposing a signing period in June, one in December and the final one in February, and that’s fine by me.

Why is an early signing period needed? It will slow down the uncommittable offers that are being handed out now like candy on Halloween. It will allow prospects to know where they stand at two different signing stages. it will take the pressure off prospects who get hammered by coaches in December and January.

If a kid wants to sign early and knows what school (not coach) he wants to pick, let him do it. If he wants to hold off, that’s another option. Right now if a prospect commits early verbally, no one stops recruiting him and he’s pestered throughout his senior season and beyond.

Coaches would obviously not be able to recruit prospects that signed with other schools so the recruiting pool would be much smaller after June. Coaches also wouldn’t be allowed to drop kids who signed so you’d see much less of the “thinning out” of recruits late in the process as coaching staffs decide players haven’t developed to their satisfaction or a better option has come along. And it would bring more parity to recruiting, as you won’t have as many of the bigger programs stealing from the smaller down the stretch as they strike out on a few of their top options.

The NCAA’s proposal is far from perfect. It doesn’t address head coaching changes or official visits, and it puts a signing period smack in the middle of summer camp evaluations. And so on. But an early signing period is needed, that’s been clear to me for over a decade. This isn’t the proposal I’d jump on, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction.

There seems to be this notion that an early signing period would benefit the world of college football recruiting – whether that be the coaches or the players – but I don’t buy it at all.

First, let’s talk about the coaches. If players can sign early then the recruiting process would be even more sped up in a desperate attempt to get involved with prospects first, show them the love, and not be late to the game. We see this already without an early signing period, so just imagine how bad it would be if one was implemented.

Coaches would really be guessing on a lot of recruits just to save themselves from being late on a kid. They would be handing out even more early offers, and kids in their eighth grade, freshman and sophomore years can change so dramatically that they’re different players as seniors.

Now, the players. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that an early signing period would put even more pressure on kids to make a decision before they’re ready. And I have no doubt some coaches would compel kids to sign during the early period or risk getting dropped.

It would help some prospects get a better understanding on where they stand with certain colleges – if they’re told to hold off on signing early then they’re definitely not a top priority – but moving up the recruiting calendar even more is dangerous business.

There are late coaching changes every year and as much as we don’t want to believe kids pick schools because of coaches, they do.

An early signing period brings in way too many concerning problems. We would see way more transfers and kids trying to get out of signing early and it would be a mess. I used to cover basketball recruiting, and that sport has an early signing period. Does anyone want football recruiting to look more like basketball recruiting? I don’t think so.