College football’s first signing period already has at least one vocal opponent – but it just so happens to be the most powerful voice in the sport. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey took the time this weekend ahead of the College Football Playoff National Championship to address the early signing period and its impact on the sport in a short period of time. In short, Sankey believes the December signing period, coupled with the transfer portal, has made life more difficult for coaches and players.
“We crush the coaches in December” Sankey told The Athletic. “We are going to add playoff games (in December). We have to change the early signing.”
Sankey elaborated on the issue during a meeting with reporters Sunday in Los Angeles, noting that with coaches expressing concerns about activity overload in December, conferences “have a responsibility to take another look at it.” .
“From a remedies perspective, I don’t think you can go back to just the first Wednesday in February,” Sankey said. “But you look at the alternatives. The fact that we have a domestic league where we haven’t had the extended off period that we’re used to. Or even on holidays because of the transfer portal. That’s another weight about coaches. Coaches say, ‘What are we doing?’ We’ve had a lot of feedback from the coaches.”
If Sankey says that publicly, he’s not just shooting from the hip. He’s probably repeating what he’s heard from SEC athletic directors and the football coaches who work for them, and it’s hard to disagree with the assessment.
A lot has changed since the early signing period was introduced five years ago. There was no transfer portal and players who transferred had to be away for a year. Now there are transfer windows and no penalties for player movement, which has led schools to fire coaches earlier than ever and scramble to find replacements ahead of the early signing period to keep their classes up. together. This, in turn, has put added pressure on players to secure places by signing early, and players do so without fully knowing who their coaches will be or where they will be on the depth chart, depending transfers.
“It’s not as practical as saying ‘We have to look at the whole calendar.’ We do, but we also have to address specific things that are very different from what part of the coaching community would have been two years ago,” Sankey said on Sunday.
Slowing everything down would be good for coaches, players and the health of the sport in general. When the early signing period was put in place, it was a relief for the coaches as they didn’t have to keep signing kids until February when they had already “committed”. Now, however, coaches must continue to recruit players already on their roster all year round to keep them happy and out of the gate. As for the players, the early signing period marked a relief to end the incessant texts from other coaches to see if there were any cracks in the commitment. However, with the existing portal, these texts continued to arrive after players were already on campus and in classrooms.
Finally, the least important consideration, but a consideration nonetheless, is that rolling things back would keep the sport in the news cycle for a longer period of time. February’s signing day was a major TV and media event. While there is still coverage from the December period, it gets lost in the glut of coaching changes, transfers and bowl matches. college football could benefit from following the example set by the NFL and other professional leagues to extend things into late winter and early spring.