I am back, I have spent the vast majority of the last month completely and utterly enthralled by the run to the Finals of one LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. It has been a good long while but I am back to writing here for the foreseeable future. That means spending endless amounts of time pouring over things that I shouldn’t be that concerned about in the first place, and news and information that has, at best, limited relevance to most others. However, despite the limited readership, I am compelled to continue on with my opinion, or “takes” if you prefer the Jim Rome brand of idiotic self indulgent and outrageous banter. Whatever the label I shall continue as before.
Moving on, my chosen subject for today, and what a selection I am afforded by not doing anything for a month. The proposed early signing period is the topic Du Jour. This is a a very hot topic to most people who follow the sport, and are forced to follow recruiting just to keep up with the Joneses. There is a measure of popular support for the concept among the coaches as evidenced by the 12-0 vote by Big 12 coaches in favor of a early December early signing period. But there is still a fairly large amount of decent among the coaching community at large, as evidenced by only three of the 12 coaches in favor of one. Not surprisingly Urban Meyer is strongly against it. Meyer is also an alleged perpetrator of so called negative recruiting, in essence talking shit about a kids choice of school in an effort to get them to change their mind, two prospects from last season alone were sweet talked by the Urban Legend. Moving on to the points that I have to make on the subject. It should be noted that this has the potential to be very boring. You have been warned.
This is a move that is going to have to be made by the NCAA at some point in time. Given the rash, yeah rash works, of early commitments begetting early enrollment at the highest level of the sport and at the premiere programs across the nation it is leading to a fundamental problem. What happens when Joe Five Star commits to a school in May but can’t put his name on the line for another 9 months. In this day and age of alleged poaching across the board a coach does not have the option to work to sucure the commitment of a prospect and then move onto other prospects lest a rival swoop in and “steal” your recruit. What happens in the end is the coach has to baby sit that commitment until the letter of intent comes through the fax on the first Wednesday in February. That is not an advantageous situation for anyone to be placed in. The percentage growth in prospects committing to a school before they play a snap of their Senior season is large enough to make China’s annual percentage growth in GDP look positively Napoleonic in stature. And much like the China’s booming economy there appears to be nothing on the horizon capable of stopping the trend of early commitments. I am not at all saying that an early signing period would alleviate the problem; but i don’t exactly see how it can hurt anything either. Now, logically speaking, because logic and reason trump all, a person would be led to believe that coaches at the very top of the profession would throw their considerable weight and influence behind such a resolution, because it would appear that this change would benefit those at the top of the game more so than those at the middle of the pack. But like so many things in life that is not the way it works.
One of the reasons that this is such a point of contention, which it will be until a solution of some form is conjured up, is the very nature of the coaching profession. The men who make up the coaching profession are in general a very conservative group of people. Not in the way they interact with the media, prospects, and players. But instead in their down right stubbornness in the general vicinity of anything that remotely resembles changing the rules. Does anyone care to remember the mass out cry from coaches all last summer about how the new clock rules were going to the bane of the profession. I do. I also remember it ceasing to be an issue from the 3rd week on because the other principal characteristic of good coaches is the ability to adjust to the situation. Coaches, in general, are the oldest group of 10 year old’s on the planet, or at least in the country. They bitch and moan about anything that could have the potential to change the way in which they go about their business. Any thing that puts at risk the very routines they cling to for their paychecks. Coaches are by their vary nature exorbitantly superstitious creatures of habit. Because adding an early signing period would change the way in which they must go about their jobs they are against it. For the coaching profession having some of the most brilliant, free thinking individuals in all of sport they are, as a group, an unbelievably narrow minded and conservative group of men.
Some of the reasoning behind the idea is unbelievably short sighted. Clear attempts to block what is the true need of the sport at this point. My personal favorite explanation reads as such, and I quote Phil Fullmer “I’m not sure it would benefit schools like Tennessee because our recruiting base is not necessarily the best.” Yes. Because Tennessee has clearly been a true victim of the process as is, what with their seemingly annual top 5 recruiting classes and what not. Yes Phil, Tennessee would get destroyed by an early signing period. There also seems to be an impression among the opposition to the idea that if, and early signing period is introduced, all the recruits will be gone by the time they get started. I mean its not like they all have the same rules, well maybe not Nick Saban but the rest of them do. It is interesting to note that the opposition to the early signing period are nearly all at the top of the heap in the conference, Les Miles being the sane rational one, that’s some food for thought right there. Yeah, the early signing period is going to hurt Florida, Georgia, Auburn, and Alabama.
I am in favor of adding an early signing period because I think that it is something that needs to happen for the sport in a very bad way. But there are some points of the idea that need to be hammered out before this becomes non binding and unenforceable law. The most obvious of them is a release clause for the letter of intent. If a prospect commits to a school, or to be more realistic a coach, because more often than not prospects commit to a coach more so than a school. Due to the nature of the profession there is a high turnover rate among the 119, or now 120, Bowl Subdivision members there are hundreds of kids every year who commit to a school only to watch the coach who recruited him leave for a bigger and better job. That is the nature of the business and often the kids follow the coaches who recruited them to their new institution. If an early signing period is introduced that is something that must be addressed. There should be an escape clause inherent with the early letter of intent if the coach who recruited him moves on. I don’t think that is a big deal, but it is still a massive point of contention among coaches, such as the ones mentioned above.
Another issue for this to be worked out is when the early signing period should be put into play. There appear to be two schools of thought on the issue. One is have signing day at some point in the summer, after all the camps die down as the coaches gear up for the upcoming season. Another approach is to place the signing period in the month of December, this is the idea that the Big 12 coaches were in favor of. I think that the solution is to have the early signing day in the last week of July. The thing that has to be remembered is that the this rule is only going to effect a very small number of kids relative to the massive number of kids that are involved in the recruiting process for the highest level of the sport. If a kid goes to camp at Ohio State, Florida, USC or somewhere else and he sufficiently blows away the coach of the host institution and that kid is offered. If that is his dream school and where he always wanted to be then he should have the option to put his name on the line and be a Buckeye, Gator or Trojan. If not they can still issue their verbal commitment at that point. That also would help coaches know who has bought the pitch verbatim, or if there is still work to be done. It would help coaches know where they would stand. Sounds logical, no?
I say have the early signing period on the last week of July. There are things that will need to be changed, and those changes will predictably be met with much mashing and grinding of teeth by the coaches. But within a week of bitching they will adapt and continue, business as usual. The one thing that will need to be changed is the recruiting calender. Dead and Quiet periods will have to be shifted, and the evaluation process will have to start sooner after signing day or run for an additional two weeks or so. The bottom line is that these are minor changes that can be made with a few swift strokes of Myles Brands pen. People will bitch and moan but I don’t see how the detractors can find much, if any, traction on this issue. An early signing period will not cure world hunger, or result in a global armistice, but it is going to be a major issue for this sport if it is not dealt with sooner rather than later.
