Early signing period?

[johnnd05]

It could be happening ...

August 17, 2007

Is early signing period in works?
NCAA concerned about increasing practice of players changing their minds

By Jeff Rabjohns

Remember the dizzying recruitment of Warren Central High School football star Jerimy Finch?

He made an oral commitment to Michigan, then to Indiana and ultimately signed with Florida in February in a scenario that occasionally plays out with touted prep football stars.
The chairman of the NCAA Division I Football Issues Committee wants the practice to stop, and thinks an early signing date will help. As it stands, football has one signing date, months after the high school season.

"There's a consensus that an early signing period would be beneficial, but we have not been able to come up with a consensus when that signing period should be," Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson said Thursday in a wide-ranging teleconference regarding the state of college football.

The football signing period for current seniors is Feb. 6-April 1. All sports other than football, field hockey, soccer and men's water polo have an early signing period in November.

Highly sought basketball recruits can sign before their senior season begins. Football players don't have that option.

Even when football players commit, college coaches spend months "baby-sitting" -- continuing to recruit committed players -- to keep from losing them.

"They're almost in a position of trying to hold everything together for six months," Pederson said. "If a student-athlete and his parents have made a decision, they should be able to sign in a reasonable amount of time."

Pederson said he has heard support for various early signing periods, from the spring after a prospect's junior year, to the summer to December of the senior year.

Another year to play?

Pederson said he also sees growing support for players to have a fifth year of eligibility.
He said more athletes are earning bachelor's degrees in 31/2 or four years and enrolling in graduate school. He also said a fifth year of eligibility would give teams more experienced players, which would lead to more player rotations at some positions and potentially reduce injuries.

"We believe the time has come," said Pederson, a strong proponent of the idea.

No playoff push

Pederson didn't sound ready to push for a playoff system to replace the bowls, even though I-A -- now know as the Football Bowl Subdivision -- is the only level of college football without a playoff.

NCAA Division I-AA -- or Football Championship Subdivision -- Division II, Division III and NAIA all have playoffs that require multiple postseason wins to crown a champion.
"If you took the bowl games and said, OK, 60 teams are on the way to bowl games, and two of those are going to play off for the real national championship, there are 10 or 15 teams that haven't been to a bowl game in years. There is great enthusiasm, great momentum around those programs. There are another 10 or 15 that win a bowl game and create enthusiasm off a game maybe they didn't expect to win," he said.

 

[NDboy15]

That would be very interesting if that happened.

 

[johnnd05]

Here's more on this:

Posted on Thu August 23, 2007

Early signing period would be no sweat to football coaches By Pete DiPrimio

So here’s a reason to sweat for University of Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. He has the No. 1-rated football recruiting class for 2008. He has 19 oral commitments, including one 5-star player (tight end Kyle Rudolph from Cincinnati) and 14 4-star players (Bishop Luers High School’s John Goodman is one; California quarterback Dayne Crist is another).

That’s great, except for two problems. First, today’s commitment can become tomorrow’s change of heart. Second, with signing day not until February, Weis has to hope players keep their words for the next six months despite all kinds of temptations to do otherwise.

How much of a concern is that? Consider that 100 football recruits changed their minds in 2006, more than 100 did last season. Notre Dame lost four players this way last February (although the Irish also gained two this way).

Even lower profile schools such as Indiana aren’t immune. Last year, highly touted Warren Central defensive back Jerimy Finch committed to Michigan, backed out to commit to IU, then backed out again to sign with national champion Florida.

That’s why most coaches are pushing for an early signing period. That would lock in all those nonbinding oral commitments so coaches aren’t scrambling to find replacements just before signing day.

Yes, the NCAA is listening.

Nebraska athletic director Steve Perderson, the chairman of the NCAA Division I Football Issues Committee, said during a recent teleconference that if a player and his family have made a decision on which school to attend, “they should be able to sign in a reasonable amount of time.”

How early is reasonable? That’s still up for debate.

Weis, for instance, prefers August. His assistant coaches favor November or December. Indiana coach Bill Lynch likes December.

The February period would still be retained.

Weis wants the early signing period before the high school season, just as it is for basketball (which has a November early period as well as an April period after the season). In fact, all sports with the exception of football, soccer, field hockey and men’s water polo have early signing periods in November.

“I think one of the biggest problems high school coaches have is kids not having the security of knowing where they’re going to college before their senior years,” Weis says. “So if they haven’t accepted a scholarship, they risk not getting one if they get injured.”

Notre Dame eliminates that worry by guaranteeing scholarships to recruits who orally commit.

“Any guy that makes a commitment to us,” Weis says, “even though he’s not signed until February, knows it’s a two-way commitment. It’s them committing to me and me committing to them.

“If something happens during their senior year, they’re still coming here on a scholarship. I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, you tore your ACL, you can’t come.’ That protects players and lets them play uninhibited their (high school) senior year without worrying that, ‘I’d better not play. My hammy (hamstring) hurts a little bit and it might end up costing me a scholarship.’”

Lynch says he prefers to have recruits make official visits — which occur during the college season — before having an early signing period. The personal touch — a chance to see coaches and players interacting during a college game-day setting — is huge for a program like Indiana, which lacks the national prestige you find at Ohio State and Michigan.

The Hoosiers have 15 oral commitments so far, including Harding’s Marquelo Suel.

“We’d like them to make an official visit here, bring their parents here,” Lynch says. “It’s not in our best interests to do it in the summer.”

Why are more players backing out of oral commitments? Recruiting experts such as Tom Lemming of CSTV and Bob Lichtenfelts of scout.com talk about the influence of the Internet (the constant speculation and encouragement to consider other schools) and of aggressive recruiters who no longer back off when a player commits to another school.

But mostly, it’s the whims of teenagers who can change their mind every time they get a new message from a Weis or a Pete Carroll or an Urban Meyer.

Lichtenfelts says he knows a player who orally committed to seven different schools.

“He said, ‘I can’t say no to anybody.’ It was like you get a crush on a girl in middle school, you like her for two weeks and then you move on to the next girl.”

For now, nobody has more or better crushes than Notre Dame. For that, at least, Weis doesn’t have to sweat.

 

[Tennesseeirish]

That would be very interesting if that happened.

HHMMM