NCAA gives athletes option to commit in December window
Three-day period designed to let high school seniors opt out of recruitment process early
The question that has long plagued college-bound high school football players — Do you want more time or less time? — is more nuanced than it may seem.
High school football seniors have for years had until the first Wednesday in February to decide where to attend college. Then the signing period began when players could sign financial aid agreements with colleges and universities.
It’s cultivated a frenzied few weeks at the end of the year in which college coaches bear down on 17- and 18-year-olds to try to secure their commitments. Those 17- and 18-year-olds have responded with colorful stunts to announce their colleges of choice.
Now the process is due to change. The NCAA last week authorized a 72-hour early signing window between Dec. 20 through 22 for the class of 2018.
It is a way for players who want to opt out of the college football recruiting scene six weeks early, and designed to give high school seniors a bit more of downhill slope to the end of their secondary school careers.
In other words, it gives players headed to college more autonomy to answer the question for themselves: Do you want more time or less time?
“Having that ability to sign early and get it over with would really take a load off our shoulders,” high school senior offensive lineman Nick Bernacchi said.
Navy offered him a scholarship in March of his junior season. Three weeks later, he committed to play for the Midshipmen and shut his recruiting process down.
“I remember the day I got the offer from Navy. I was more elated than ever, more than any of the other offers,” he said. “I felt it there. I loved it there. I would regret not coming to Navy. I would not regret not going anywhere else.”
But “shutting it down,” just meant simply not picking up the phone when other coaches called or offering a polite, “thanks, but no thanks.” There was no way to escape the recruiting process.
That was fine by Bernacchi. He didn’t need one. He loved the feeling, he said, of being wanted and rewarded for his hard work. And Navy was the right fit. There was a degree of pride in telling folks, “I’m committed,” he said.
But there’s plenty of other
players who even on the first Wednesday in February aren’t solid in their decisions.
“[I decided] literally five seconds before I put the hat on,” defensive back Tariq Castro-Fields said on National Signing Day this year after choosing Penn State over Maryland. “It was that close — 50/50.”
Theoretically, the December signing period will force college coaches to make scholarship offers sooner, instead of dangling those offers in front of several prospects and hoping the most highly-touted one says yes first, Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney told CBS Sports columnist Jon Solomon.
But the fear among some high school coaches is that an earlier signing window will entice more students to commit before they’re ready, and that college coaches might put apply more pressure earlier in the recruiting process.
“The process is already accelerated,” said Elijah Brooks, coach at DeMatha Catholic High School in Maryland. “I think this puts it in overdrive.”
And that begs the question, what do high school football players really want: more time to mull over a decision, or less time to force them to focus on making the right college choice?
“I would honestly say I’d want to have more time,” Bernacchi said. The time that I had, the couple months that I took, you don’t want to make a decision that is too hasty.”