Wednesday a first for football
National signing day is no longer limited to early February.
COLUMBUS — High school football seniorswill be able to do somethingWednesday they never were allowed to before: Sign a letter of intent with the college of their choice before Christmas.
Their counterparts in basketball have had two signing periods — one in November, one in April — for years, but for at least as long as more than a few diehards have cared about recruiting, football players weren’t allowed to sign until early February.
The new 72-hour period for football isWednesday-Friday.
Thepath for that to change was cleared last springwhen the NCAA Division I Council passed several changes to college football’s recruiting model.
With the big day finally near, one thing looks clear: Almost everyone is going to take advantage.
Colleges aremaking plans to welcome recruits’ signaturesWednesday as if itwere the old February date, and nearly every player in the area who has committed to a school has indicated an intent to sign rather than wait.
The alternative would be to hold offff until February to see what options remain — and some recruits who are undecided appear ready to do that — but signing in late December may become the new normal.
An early signing period was discussed fromtime to time over the yearswith the date flfluctuatingwith various proposals.
Ohio State coach Urban Meyer spoke out against a potential summer datemultiple times but said he could live with the December date after it became the newlaw of the land in May.
“I was really opposed to a (signing day in) June and August,” Meyer told WSYX TV in Columbus. “I think December is OK.”
Along with the new signing datewill come a change in when players are allowed to make offifficial visits, too.
Classof2018prospects still had to wait until the beginning of their senior year to take offifficial visits, which are paid for by the school.
Many alsomake unoffifficial visits, but the prospect has to pay for those.
Beginning next year, juniors are eligible to take official visits as early as April 1.
Meyer is happy about that but expressed concernabout moving up the recruiting calendar.
However, in many ways the new dates for visits and signing reflflect changes that already occurred.
Recruits of every pedigree — from fifive- star blue chips to lightly recruitedthree-star prospects — have been making unoffifficial visits as underclassmen and issuing verbal commitments earlier and earlier for a decade ormore.
Filling nearly every slot in a recruiting class by the end of the summer has gone fromunheardof to thenorm at many schools, including Ohio State, so letting players go ahead and put pen to paper made a certain amount of sense.
Miami University coach Chuck Martin said in July he would prefer to see an even more drastic change.
“It should be before the senior year,” Martin said. “That’s an early signing period. All these kids are committed now. How many kids in America that are juniors are committed right now? Why don’t we have them sign?
“Because a few of the big boys don’twant themto sign so they can poach them. No one wants to say it, but it’s a fact.”
Not that the former Notre Dame assistant blames the big schools for throwing their weight around when they need to.
“And if I was at Alabama, I wouldn’t want an early signing period either,” Martin said. “I would want to be able on Jan. 28 to go steal somebody.
“If we’re trying to teach kids what commitment is and what your word is, it makes no sense.”
He also noted another unfortunate reality of recruiting: Sometimes schools pull offers, even from players who have been committed for months.
“There are teams in our league that have dropped guys in January,” he said. “I’m not going to name names, but I know who they are. They just dropped them. Well, if they had signed, it protects the high school kids.”
If the new early signing period is an improvement — giving players who sign some piece of mind six weeks early — in some ways, it’s still far from perfect.
Meyer lamented in late November being unsure how many player she can or needs to sign this recruiting cycle because he has an untold number of players with eligibility remaining who could enter the NFL draft early.
They don’t have to make that decision until themiddle of January, so his roster might have ad if ff ff ff ff ff fe rent look than expected less than a month after the early signing period.
“The other thing you’re going to see is the guy you keep on the back burner and try to flip him at the end, he signs on (Dec.) 20, you don’t have those guys either,” Meyer said Nov. 13. “So it’s going to be an interesting year.”
Ah, yes, there is that issue Martinmentioned, too: Wooing playerswho are committed elsewhere.
Meyer speaks often of saving a few spots for late-bloomers, those who might grow into high- level prospects only as seniors.
Everyone does it, but Meyer more than most coaches has a reputation for flflipping playerswho are committed to other schools, sometimes shortlybefore the old February signing day.
Among themany players he lured away from previous commitments isDwayne Haskins, his likely starting quarterback next season. Two weeks before signing day in 2016, he decidedto be a Buckeye rather than play for his home-state school, Maryland.
Current Buckeye defensive tackle Robert Landers, a Wayne High School graduate, was going to West Virginia before his senior season convinced Meyer to off ff ff ff ff ff er him an OSU scholarship in December 2014.
That is just two examples, but they serve as a reminder everyone has a unique situation.
Sowhile there is no doubt recruiting has entered a new world, just what consequences — intended or not — will come?
It’s almost time to start fifinding out.