Call For Early Signing Day For High School Football Recruits Growing Louder

February 10, 2009

Patrick Dorsey of the Indianapolis Star gives voice recently to an idea whose popularity is growing amongst those most intimately involved in process of college football recruiting: the creation of an early signing period for football players at the high school level in order to allow commitments to announce their programs of choice as early as August, following a format similar to that already in place for secondary student-athletes that play basketball.

As of now, the first official date that a college football prospect can officially ink a commitment to a specific program generally falls on the first Wednesday of February – often referred to as National Signing Day; recruits, however, do not have to announce their selections at that time, instead having until April 1st to evaluate their options and come to a final decision as to where they will play after their senior year in high school.

This isn’t to suggest that a high school player has to wait until National Signing Day to make a verbal commitment to a program of interest. On the contrary, that can come at nearly any point throughout the year. The verbal commitment, however, is not considered binding – either on the part of the athlete making the commitment or the school offering a scholarship in return. Thus the importance of National Signing Day – it solidifies the deal between player and institution and ensures that a scholarship will be waiting for the players as long as he maintains his commitment to the program and can qualify academically with the NCAA in order to play at the university level.

Dorsey writes that many high school coaches would like to see the verbal commitment portion of the recruiting process reformed, particularly since even after a sought-after recruit has announced his decision to play at one school or another, outside programs can still attempt to sway his opinion toward a different option up until the point that the player has signed a letter of intent to play for a given college. And this whether or not that college receiving the letter of intent is the same one initially provided a verbal commitment or not.

The creation of an early signing period, say some, would bring an end to such a practice and, subsequently, remove the burden of continued recruitment from outside sources off the shoulders of the student-athlete. Advancing that signing window as early as August would also allow the stress and strain oftentimes associated with the commitment process to be brought to an end prior to the start of the high school football season, thereby allowing players the ability to focus more clearly on meeting the goals of the team for which they are a member rather than concentrating so much on their own personal interests to play football at the college level. Recruiting would be moved to earlier in the spring and provide players the opportunity to set visits to respective programs of interest at a point in the year when the pressures of academics and athletics isn’t nearly as demanding as it might be in the midst of the fall and high school football season.

The merits of an early signing period certainly seem to not have fallen on deaf ears, Dorsey reports. With concern growing over the integrity and timing of the recruiting process as it currently stands, organizations such as the American Football Coaches Association have taken up the call to evaluate the possibility of a change in that system, even this past December going so far as voting for the establishment of a mid-December commitment period for high school recruits on a trial basis from 2009 through 2012. That particular proposal met with overwhelming support from the AFCA, Dorsey states, but was rejected (perhaps predictably so) by Division I football conference commissioners attending a NCAA football convention held in January with no clear explanation as to why – this even though, explains Gaylon Krizak of the San Antonio Express-News, 73 percent of all FBS head coaches supported the plan as developed by the AFCA.

Regardless of whatever served as the motivation for NCAA conference heads to discard the AFCA’s recommendations, the potential need for an early signing period does not carry any less weight than before. Claims Rob Ianello, Notre Dame assistant and head of the AFCA-FBS Assistant Coaches Committee, and as discussed in an article for ESPN.com written by Joe Schad, by the mid-way point of this past month, there were over 1000 verbal commitments – approximately 15 for each respective FBS program in the nation – made by high school players recruited to play at the college level. “Why not let them sign,” Ianello asks bluntly, adding, “Is it a reservation or a commitment?” “What we’re seeing now,” he continues, “is oversigning and late switches” – an after-effect, Ianello suggests, of continued recruitment by schools after a verbal commitment has been made public.

Pat Fitzgerald, head coach of the Northwestern Wildcats, puts the problem in a different perspective in a recent article published by the Chicago Tribune. Says Fitzgerald of the current system of recruiting high school juniors and seniors, making a comparison between the holding power of verbal commitments and dinner plans at a local restaurant, “Right now some kids make an 8 o’clock dinner reservation but then they say: ‘If a 6 o’clock reservation opens, I’ll take that. If school X is higher on my list, I’ll go there.’”

Recruiting analyst Tom Lemming calls the process described by Fitzgerald a “safe house” commitment – where a recruit verbally assures a less-regarded program that he will play following graduation, yet immediately begins the process of looking “upward” for a more favorable choice of university. It’s a system, Lemming proclaims, that is “making a mockery of college football.”

Is the answer to the charade as described above by Fitzgerald and Lemming an early signing period? There are plenty at both the high school and college level who share the belief that it is. Whatever the final answer, what remains clear is this: though the NCAA rejected the AFCA’s proposal as discussed above, the issue of an early signing period for high school football recruits isn’t one many think will disappear any time soon. The college recruiting process as it currently exists is hardly in shambles. Still, there is mounting evidence, some argue, that such a system is clearly beginning to show an urgent need for progressive reform. Until that problem is addressed directly, proponents of an early signing period are likely to find widespread support for their position increasing and the potential for their vision to become a much more tangible possibility than not.