Movement towards an early signing period

H-towngreen · March 8, 2014

Looks like this is coming down the pipeline. This would be a win win for everyone involved.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/story/_/id/10566757/ncaa-considering-early-signing-period-football

cogido · March 8, 2014

Could you give a simple example of how this would benefit a prospective recruit and a university? Right now verbal commitments are "floating" until official signing in February for football. Between the Verbal Commit and the Official Signing there are "decommits" etc. Would that aspect change?

H-towngreen · March 8, 2014

Players are committing earlier and earlier every season, so if a player is ready to sign early then let them sign early. If a player is not ready or thinks that they might have a breakout senior season then they can wait it out for the 2nd signing period. It will help the schools in that they can stop having to put resources towards players who are already committed elsewhere, be it there school or another. Plus you would hopefully see a decrease in the decommit game that so many kids are doing these days. I think this would really help a school like UNT. Whereas I'm sure most major schools will get the majority of their class signed early, I imagine UNT would get a handful. But that would allow UNT to narrow in on what's left, on who they want and not have to fight the big boys at the last second. It would also make evaluations more important for the big schools as they would be signing a good chunk of their class of Soph/JR years play. No breaking up with a player if he has a down senior season.

forevereagle · March 10, 2014

Could you give a simple example of how this would benefit a prospective recruit and a university? Right now verbal commitments are "floating" until official signing in February for football. Between the Verbal Commit and the Official Signing there are "decommits" etc. Would that aspect change?

If they sign during the early signing period, then they would be locked in to that. Same as they are for basketball.

GOMG2013 · March 10, 2014

Im kinda on the fence about an early siging period as it relates to smaller schools. It can prevent big programs from stealing commits at the last minute, but a lot of the players that are good will still hold out and wait for the later signing period.

The few recruits we had stolen from us the last two years were waiting for bigger schools to offer. An early signing period wont change that.

I can see it hurting smaller schools in a way. Once the big schools start locking players up with the early signing period, it could make it worse.

If Texas tech signs half of thier class in the early period, they no longer have to worry about recruiting those players. The ones they dont sign, they will consider them shaky, so that means they will start looking at commits from smaller schools like they do now. This time, it will be more obvious that recruits are waiting for bigger offers considering they did not sign in the first period.

Only way this benefits a school like unt is if the early signing period is very early and you can sign players that have flown under the radar.

The players that do not have many offers may sign in the early signing period for fear that they may lose offers. But are we really wanting a lot of those players?

I only see the early signing period matching recruits who have been offered by thier top choice or dream school and getting them out of the way, or the ones who are happy to get a d1 offer and they are happy with what they have on the table.

cogido · March 10, 2014

So, having read all of the above, it sounds like our (UNT's) best strategy pertaining to signing periods is to be patient, or impatient, and continue to support and push for the kind of quality growth we have seen under McCarney with bowl recognition and wins, i.e, "you grow it and they will come".

BillySee58 · May 28, 2014

SEC football coaches trying to propose for one, most likely proposal will be for the first Monday after Thanksgiving.

Edited May 28, 2014 by BillySee58

NorthTexan95 · May 28, 2014

I see this as a good thing for kids. They'll know earlier just how much a school wants them. Kids who sign early won't have to worry about the constant attention from schools trying to sway them to their own school.

adman · May 28, 2014

I could see it cutting down on the number of payments the P5 have to make to keep a player committed although the one time lump sum for early commitment may be larger overall.