Early signing period is about to change

[Gerry Hamilton]

Per ESPN, NCAA meeting on changing the dates of the signing period for high school football prospects. And I've got say I love it!

Here is where it's headed (A Power 5 assistant mentioned this to me Tuesday)...

Last Wednesday in June - early signing period 

Wednesday after regular season ends in college football (those are for the December HS graduates by and large)

and 

First Wednesday in February

Hey, yippee!!! The NCAA may finally get something right 

[Ojeezy]

I’m glad they’re changing it, because the way it is now is the worst so anything will be an improvement. But if I’m understanding correctly, it seems to me like a lot of those kids that sign in June will be requesting out of their NLI’s after the season. 
 

So much can change between June and the end of the football season, teams underperform, coaches get fired, etc. Programs can look completely different in January than they did in June when the player committed. I know some kids will want to get their recruitment over with before their senior football season, but I just feel like a higher percentage of those June signings won’t stick. 
 

The best use case for this might be Florida this upcoming season. I have to assume they will have a pretty decent summer recruiting wise, but I also assume with that schedule, Billy won’t make it through the year. 

Edited February 28 by Ojeezy

[Gerry Hamilton]

2 minutes ago, Ojeezy said:

I’m glad they’re changing it, because the way it is now is the worst so anything will be an improvement. But if I’m understanding correctly, it seems to me like a lot of those kids that sign in June will be requesting out of their NLI’s after the season. 
 

So much can change between June and the end of the football season, teams underperform, coaches get fired, etc. Programs can look completely different in January than they did in June when the player committed. I know some kids will want to get their recruitment over with before their senior football season, but I just feel like a higher percentage of those June signings won’t stick. 
 

The best use case for this might be Florida this upcoming season. I have to assume they will have a pretty decent summer recruiting wise, but I also assume with that schedule, Billy won’t make it through the year. 

IMO, only if there is a coaching change. 

What's about to happen in NIL is these contracts are going to be binding with buyouts IMO. Prospects are going to be locked into them replacing the old locking in of the NLI. 

[Ojeezy]

5 minutes ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

IMO, only if there is a coaching change. 

What's about to happen in NIL is these contracts are going to be binding with buyouts IMO. Prospects are going to be locked into them replacing the old locking in of the NLI. 

Do you think the NIL landscape is competitive enough for players that might be looking to jump ship due to a coaching change, to just be bought out of their original deal and sign a new one in December? I’m thinking for example, that if there was a player we really wanted committed to Florida, Billy gets fired, our NIL guys would just reach back out and say hey, offer is still on the table. 
 

Again, hypotheticals, but what stops a kid from being locked into a $1M NIL deal in June, they sign their NLI, then from June-December other collectives from around the country are negotiating with deals worth $1.5M, $2M, etc. And in this scenario the head coach/coaching staff that they committed to in June doesn’t even have to get fired. 

 

I guess I’m just playing devil’s advocate. Maybe I’m scarred from the Ron Holland recruitment. 

[Bobby Burton]

This is a major development. 

[Glass Joe]

59 minutes ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

IMO, only if there is a coaching change. 

What's about to happen in NIL is these contracts are going to be binding with buyouts IMO. Prospects are going to be locked into them replacing the old locking in of the NLI. 

Yeah, I’m of the belief that NIL contracts will become the de facto way of binding players to schools, and eventually of governing the current transfer (“portal”) process for player movement.

i hope the powers that be think far enough ahead to avoid a process where high schoolers are pressured into signing NIL deals long before they’ve actually gone through the full recruitment process.  For example, I have little doubt that Hugh Freeze would sign every one of his current 2025 commits (and even not-yet-commits) to an NIL deal tomorrow if this new regulation has any holes or gray areas enabling him to do so.  Heck, he’d bind 9th graders to Auburn via NIL if he could.

My biggest concern is DK Moore being contractually bound to LSU long before any June OVs take place.

[Atticus]

It wouldn't be smart for players to give up their leverage by signing so early. It'll also be interesting to see which prospects top schools even allow to sign that early and how that impacts recruitments.

Interesting development indeed.

[GoHorns1]

Using common sense finally 

[marathon]

12 minutes ago, Atticus said:

It wouldn't be smart for players to give up their leverage by signing so early. It'll also be interesting to see which prospects top schools even allow to sign that early and how that impacts recruitments.

Interesting development indeed.

If a player is tired of the recruiting process and knows where he wants to go then he can sign.

Plus, you have your guaranteed  NIL and don’t have to worry about an injury during your senior season .

Not everything in life is about leveraging the very last dollar out of someone.

 

 

Edited February 28 by marathon

[Lam Dinh]

The best thing that comes from this news is that the current mid-December signing window moves to the first week of December, clearly separating the Transfer Window with the HS Recruiting Period. This will allow coaching staffs to evaluate Transfer Window needs after setting the roster with "early" HS additions. This should lead to a cleaner evaluation process (i.e. HS kids with offers are less likely to get them pulled because of transfer additions, as coaches can more accurately forecast scholarship availability).

I'm a little less clear about what adding a June signing window actually does from a final roster perspective. In this past recruiting cycle, 85% of players signed in the December period (vs. 15% in February period), so the de-facto national signing day has already become December. With these new rules, my guess is that the ~85% of kids that sign in December will now be spread across both the June and December signing periods. This benefits coaches not having to worry about some kids flip flopping in-season. However, as Gerry mentioned today on OTF, most Texas coaches don't recruit during the season anyways, so I'm not sure if this actually saves them any time - but I get the mental relief of knowing a kid is officially signed.

In the end, I can see this change benefiting college programs that end up underachieving in season, because the players who signed in June would technically still be committed to that school (assuming there is an ironclad structure to prevent easy de-commitments). However, that is likely a one-time benefit since if you are constantly underachieving, you aren't going to be getting top recruits. For a program that is on the rise like Texas, I don't currently expect the new structure to lead to a materially better roster or recruiting advantage for Texas.