Nick Saban has forgotten more college football than I’ll ever know. He is the greatest coach of this generation. He is one of the best of all time, but he’s wrong about something. He’s wrong that the new early signing period is bad for college football. It might be bad for him. Coaching staffs are having to recruit during bowl season, but it’s good for college football. Here was his take from al.com.
“I don’t think it’s in the players’ best interest,” Saban said. “I don’t see how it benefits anybody. I think it’s really stressful for everyone. We’re all trying to get ready for bowl games and playoff games and we have a signing day right in the middle of when we’re going to be practicing for a playoff game.
“It was very stressful for a lot of coaches to get out and see as many guys as they could in December and accelerate everything. You don’t have very much time to do that. If you’re playing in a championship game, you have even less time to do it.”
Most coaches are making easily 6 or 7 figure salaries, they can put in a little extra effort into recruiting a player. Here’s why I like the early signing period…
Kids that are sure where they want to go can go ahead solidify their commitments. How many athletes have we heard about that have lost scholarships or had to be grey-shirted because other candidates were found in the February signing period. This left players with little time to find another school that hadn’t filled their class.
This is from Paul Johnson of Georgia Tech.
PJ said they got called by a couple of recruits cut by bigger name schools. Said that is the better part of early signing period.
— Kelly Quinlan (@Kelly_Quinlan) December 20, 2017
What is that player going to do when most classes are filled a month and half from now? Now these quality players that just missed a big name school that Johnson is talking about were left scrambling in years past still have a chance to sign on to a power 5 school.
Bob Stoops of Kentucky had this to say in the Courier Journal…
So I don’t see anything wrong with giving guys two options. If you want to get it out of the way and knock it out of the way in December, so be it.”
That’s the key you’ve give the student-athlete more options. The football recruiting elites like Clemson, Alabama, and Georgia are still going to recruit well. They cleaned up today, but lesser power 5 schools have signed the majority of their class, and don’t have as much fear of a class falling apart in February. It makes the school more sure of the players they recruit at an earlier time. The players have more options, so how is that a bad for college football?
Sorry Nick your extra time working, doesn’t make this a bad thing.
Now if we can allow players transfer or de-commit without penalty if a headcoaching change is made, then we’ll really have something.
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