Get Rid of National Signing Day

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
The more I thought about this over the last couple weeks - and watched all that went on - the more I think this is absolutely the way to go. There are a ton of reasons to get rid of it and I really can't come up with any reasons against it.

Really the only argument people can make against it is what if a recruit signs too early then changes his mind. I'm sure this will happen but this is more about learning life lessons than anything. And it's not like that couldn't happen now. The only caveat I'd put in there is the player is allowed to back out if the head coach leaves prior to some date - February 1 would be fine.

But it would eliminate so much of the craziness and borderline absurdity of what's going on now. Coaches wouldn't be throwing hundreds of offers out to everyone. Kids wouldn't have offers pulled at the last minute. Coaches wouldn't have to "baby-sit" the entire class right up to the last day. Kids wouldn't have to keep fending off other coaches once they've made their decision.

I really can't come up with a reason NOT to get rid of it.

And then this stuff starts to come to light and it just makes all the more sense:

During Jimbo Fisher’s National Signing Day Party Wednesday night, defensive ends coach Brad Lawing made some interesting comments during the portion of the event in which each coach takes the stage to talk about the newest Seminoles. When talking about Manuel, Lawing suggested that he knew the Florida commit was going to flip to FSU for two weeks, but told him to “just play the game” and to “tell them damn Gators what they want to hear” before flipping, according to the Palm Beach Post’s Tom D’Angelo.
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Link

Bad enough when the kids are doing it. When opposing coaches are in on it, it's time to make drastic changes.

 
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I personally am not for this. But, I am for major changes in recruiting regulations AND an early signing date like basketball has.

 
I could live with an early signing date as well. But not in December - that gains basically nothing. Sometime in August so guys can get it out of the way before their season starts.

Of course, that would have to be tied to earlier OVs.

 
Either of these two options would be a great improvement.

Conversely, if you look at college football and its ancillaries (CFB websites, etc) as an entertainment entity (which I do), then they have pretty much zero incentive for getting rid of national signing day. It's a big event that generates a lot of page clicks (and thus ad revenue) for them in an otherwise dead time of year.

If you look at it from that perspective, the spectacle is part of the appeal to the powers that be. That's why you have Bleacher Report making all these announcement videos. All about the $$$$$.

 
Think everyone around here knows that I'm in agreement with Maveric on this one.

I literally can't think of why legitimate, "athlete facing" reason why this type of contract should be treated differently than every other kind of contract in the United States.

They should almost completely de-reglate recruiting (i.e., allow as much contact as coaches and players want, allow more visits, both in terms of timing and who can attend, allow use of jets, etc.).

Back in the 80s and 90s when there wasn't $10s of millions sloshing around each P5 conference, it may (MAY) have made sense to have some restrictions on spending so there was a semblance of a "fair fight" in recruiting. Now, most P5 conferences have the cash necessary to recruit competitively.

I'm sure some will argue that the Texas's, Ohio States and Alabama's have way bigger war chests than even most other P5 programs, and that deregulation would give them an enormous advantage. My counter is that the current system already advantages those programs by (a) driving more recruits to "unofficial visits" and contacts with local/regional teams, (b) limiting a recruit's ability to fully gather information about schools that aren't immediately in their vicinity, and © by making it generally easier for recruits to get to official visits compare to more remote programs.*

So, if the system is already skewed in favor of certain programs, then we need to do what we can to give NU a chance to compete. That means removing these restrictions and letting schools spend more on recruiting if they choose to (meaningful recruiting like conversations with kids and getting them and their families on campus (i.e., in person recruiting)... not this "let's have 53 GAs working the phones and film room crap).

I don't see that hurting less advantaged schools among the P5 because they all have money to spend on this stuff. And the advantage to big programs, with lots of money, isn't proportionately bigger because there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to "in person" recruiting. Meaning, the dollars are among the least significant issues when it comes to opportunity costs associated with conducting in person recruiting. Mainly, the limiting factor is how much time coaches have to divide themselves among targets (both in terms of evaluation and sales).


*For example, Texas and Ohio State are both within 20 minutes of an international airport. Alabama is within an hour. Lincoln is an hour from Eppley, which is not international and often requires a connection.

The travel time difference is significant when trying to get a kid in for a weekend after a friday night game.
 
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wanderful said:
Either of these two options would be a great improvement.

Conversely, if you look at college football and its ancillaries (CFB websites, etc) as an entertainment entity (which I do), then they have pretty much zero incentive for getting rid of national signing day. It's a big event that generates a lot of page clicks (and thus ad revenue) for them in an otherwise dead time of year.

If you look at it from that perspective, the spectacle is part of the appeal to the powers that be. That's why you have Bleacher Report making all these announcement videos. All about the $$$$$.
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No arguing against that point at all.

But if we are going to not pay kids and do all sorts of other things to pretend that they are amateurs, then we shouldn't be monetizing their careers either.

NCAA, allegedly, doesn't make money off of recruitniks and such. We should be pressuring them to make these changes over the objection of Rivals, Scout, 247, ESPN et al.

Note, if a team an official signing day, fine. But teams should have the right to choose how they want to handle the process.

 
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NSD is just the earliest date a recruit can sign. If NSD was eliminated you'd see the same recruiting shenanigans happening even earlier in the high school career of the most talented recruits.

Here's an idea: Let each school signed a designated number of early "priority" recruits before the start of their senior. For example, each school would be allowed to sign five "priority" recruits on July 1st, the summer before their senior year. This would prevent the top schools in the states with the most recruits from telling everyone that they were the top recruit on their board. They could only lock up five recruits early. It would help level the playing field for schools like Nebraska that lack enough native talent to fill out their roster. Just a thought...

 
NUance said:
NSD is just the earliest date a recruit can sign. If NSD was eliminated you'd see the same recruiting shenanigans happening even earlier in the high school career of the most talented recruits.
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I don't think so. Coaches would still be evlauating/recruiting younger kids but they wouldn't be committing as Sophomores (at least not as many) when they know that's it. They'd wait longer to make sure they took their visits and made sure (as much as possible) that the coaches would still be there. Coaches wouldn't be giving guys papers to sign as early as they want to make sure they develop as expected, etc.

Wouldn't change a lot for the five-stars other than when they sign that would be it. But the lower-level guys would slow down a lot. And coaches would still be "recruiting" guys once they signed but they wouldn't be in the constant fear of them changing their minds and be left scrambling on NSD when a silent commit backs out - or another coach has flipped them but told them not to let the school he's decommiting from know.

 
NUance said:
NSD is just the earliest date a recruit can sign. If NSD was eliminated you'd see the same recruiting shenanigans happening even earlier in the high school career of the most talented recruits.

Here's an idea: Let each school signed a designated number of early "priority" recruits before the start of their senior. For example, each school would be allowed to sign five "priority" recruits on July 1st, the summer before their senior year. This would prevent the top schools in the states with the most recruits from telling everyone that they were the top recruit on their board. They could only lock up five recruits early. It would help level the playing field for schools like Nebraska that lack enough native talent to fill out their roster. Just a thought...
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Why create that layer of complexity? What would be the benefit?

I don't care one way or another about hat games and commitment tapes. If a kid wants to do that, he should do it whenever he pleases.

But by making LOIs a true offer and acceptance, you'd see most of the recruiting process slow way down as coaches will be slower to offer until they are certain about their desire to land a kid.

That's why this needs to be coupled with an expanded right of coaches to evaluate kids through increased contact (subject to a "no call" registery that players and patents may use).

 
My issue is with the NLI itself.

I don't think having kids sign earlier is really very good for them. Actually, it'd stink. Schools would probably continue to scoop up everyone as early as they can and if a situation changed to not favor them, they'll find a creative way out of it. They hold all the cards, after all.

February after the senior season ends seems like an appropriate enough time. If anything, make it later so programs can recruit into the spring and focus on the upcoming class. Most kids' college decisions are due May 1st.

It's more chaos for recruiting operations trying to maintain order, but if you let more kids move around freely I think it'll be better overall. Schools may keep losing guys late they thought they had, but there'll be other players to replace them with.

 
zoogs said:
My issue is with the NLI itself.

I don't think having kids sign earlier is really very good for them. Actually, it'd stink. Schools would probably continue to scoop up everyone as early as they can and if a situation changed to not favor them, they'll find a creative way out of it. They hold all the cards, after all.

February after the senior season ends seems like an appropriate enough time. If anything, make it later so programs can recruit into the spring and focus on the upcoming class. Most kids' college decisions are due May 1st.

It's more chaos for recruiting operations trying to maintain order, but if you let more kids move around freely I think it'll be better overall. Schools may keep losing guys late they thought they had, but there'll be other players to replace them with.
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I think it would have the opposite effect. Everyone would slow down, especially if you shut the door on "creative ways out" of the contract. A broken contract should, for the college = loss of that scholarship + one more scholarship the following year, and for the recruit, a year of lost eligibility (similar to if they transferred without a redshirt available).

Of course both parties could agree to rescind the contract (for example, if a player suffers a career ending injury or there is a coaching change). I'd also give the recruit a right to exit a contract in the event a recruiting coach, position coach or higher were to leave prior to a cutoff date (Feb X for example). A coach's unilateral rights to break the contract would be limited to a kid (a) not being eligible to compete in NCAA competition (i.e., I would not hook it to admissibility at a school... if a school doesn't accept a kid, that was a risk the coach took on when he recruited him), or (b) committing some major crime or act of moral turpitude.

Coaches would be so much slower to offer a kid who could immediately accept. Sure, there would be some guys who go super early, because their talent is so obvious and they are set on a school, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

 
zoogs said:
My issue is with the NLI itself.

I don't think having kids sign earlier is really very good for them. Actually, it'd stink. Schools would probably continue to scoop up everyone as early as they can and if a situation changed to not favor them, they'll find a creative way out of it. They hold all the cards, after all.
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Pretty sure there isn't a way out of it. That's the whole point.

Even the financial aid paperwork they've come up with now is binding on the school but not on the player.

 
Mavric said:
BTW, why don't you like it? Just curious.
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I believe it would allow coaches to put extreme pressure on the recruit to sign papers when maybe they haven't had the ability to think things through.

The kid gets pressured only to regret it later but he's stuck.

 
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