Signing period comes earlier than usual this year. Some coaches would rather it be even sooner

AP Sports Writer

High school football recruits get a chance to finalize their college decisions a couple of weeks sooner than usual this year. Some coaches wouldn’t mind see the recruiting calendar moved up a few months earlier than that.

Football’s early signing period begins Wednesday and runs through Friday, enabling seniors to get things taken care of just before the transfer portal window opens Dec. 9. The signing period started Dec. 20 last year and Dec. 21 the year before, the same time transfers were selecting their new schools.

Craig Bohl, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said it was critical to get the early signing period moved ahead of the transfer portal window.

“We want to send a strong message to the high school coaches across the country that their programs are valued and that high school recruits will be looked at and signed,” Bohl said.

The fear was that if the signing period continued taking place when the transfer window was open, it would tempt college staffs to take experienced players from the portal to fill roster spots that otherwise would go to high school recruits. Moving up the signing period in theory would protect those high school prospects.

Of course, there’s one flaw in that logic.

“Kids have already started saying they’re getting in the portal once it opens,” said Chris James, the coach at Morgan Park High School in Chicago. “So schools can still see, ‘Oh, this other kid’s going to be in the portal, so I’m not going to offer this (high school) kid or am not going to take this kid.’ In the worst-case scenario, they drop a high school kid.”

Changing the schedule

The number of players announcing their intention to enter the portal remains smaller than the number of guys who will be available once the window opens. So high school recruits do benefit from that standpoint.

Moving up the signing period also means college coaches’ overstuffed holiday schedule got slightly less taxing.

“We’re not going to have to be out, you know, traveling for two to 2 1/2, three weeks in December recruiting the guys that have been committed to us for six months to a year to sign a piece of paper,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. “That will be done.”

Lashlee said he wouldn’t mind having the signing period moved up to June the way the recruiting calendar is set up now, since many high school prospects commit the summer before their senior year anyway. Miami (Ohio) coach Chuck Martin considers the early December signing period a positive step but would rather it take place around July.

Martin recalls how hectic his schedule was last December.

“We were playing in a conference championship game, we were trying to recruit the portal, we were trying to recruit our kids that we’re trying to sign,” Martin said. “There’s no way. There’s not enough hours in the day. I think this is a good start, at least.”

Endless recruiting cycles

College coaches wonder why they must spend several months continuing to recruit players already committed to their schools just to make sure they don’t change their minds.

“From a young person’s perspective, if they know where they want to go, let them sign and be done with it,” Toledo coach Jason Candle said. “The earlier, the better for me.”

James agreed with that assessment. His Morgan Park program includes a few players committed to Bowl Subdivision programs in cornerback Jahmare Washington (Wisconsin), linebacker Jovan Clark (Washington State) and wide receiver Pierre Jackson Jr. (Wyoming). James said a summer signing period would enable prospects to lock in their decisions long before college staffs know what players might be entering the transfer portal.

“And it would help high schoolers because they can get it out of the way and focus on their season, focus on their high school team,” James said.

Omaha (Nebraska) Millard South coach Ty Wisdom noted that recruits could sign with a school in the summer, only to see their prospective coach or coordinator get fired during the season.

Even if players are allowed to re-open their recruitments in the event of a coaching change, Wisdom points out another potential hang-up. What’s to stop an elite high school player from opting out of his entire senior season after finalizing his college decision?

“I think that would be catastrophic for high school football,” said Wisdom, whose state championship team included Florida State-bound tight end Chase Loftin and Air Force-bound defensive lineman Adam Pugh.

Scrambling late for recruits

For now, college coaches are pursuing the last uncommitted prospects or trying to get recruits committed elsewhere to change their minds before Wednesday.

“You find out real quick that it’s advantageous to have a home game the last weekend (before the early signing period), and every other year we’re going to be on the short end of that,” Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said. “Kids are going to be on other people’s campuses that last weekend before signing day, and not on ours. That’s a little negative. You’ve just got to hope you can hold on through the last storm that comes.”

Whether a team is getting ready for a rivalry game early in the month or preparing for a bowl game and mining the transfer portal later this month, the early signing period is going to cause coaches plenty of headaches as long as it stays in December.

No wonder Ohio State’s Ryan Day says “we’ve got to come up with a solution so that it’s not as chaotic this time of year.”

“This is probably as unstable as it’s ever been in recruiting,” Day said last week. “I think it’s fair to say that. There’s just so much going on, there just so many variables based on when signing day is right now. There’s no good answer.”

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AP College Football Writers Eric Olson and John Zenor and AP Sports Writers Stephen Hawkins, Tim Reynolds, Mitch Stacy and Teresa M. Walker contributed to this report.

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