Unconquered

Did auburn lose that many early commits last year? I know aobut Yeldon.

It appears they are worried Trooper's spring time chest bumps lose their allure after December

IMHO it would clean up the process quite a bit. However, it could put about half of the recruting analysts out of a job.

This is the guy that had all those awful recruiting predictions last year? I'm not reading that.

I am admitting up front that I am a casual recruiting observer and can’t see all the angles. You guys who follow more intensely will pick this apart pretty quickly. Here goes:

IMO, an early signing period has to do four things:

1) Allow kids to commit firmly early and reduce the stress of the recruitment process for all parties, 2) allow for the occasional mistake a HS kid can make, 3) allow some protection for those schools that have committed a slot to a kid that might otherwise get stolen away, and 4) prevent over-signing and weird stuff like Saban pulled last year with that kid from ATL.

My proposal:

1) Force the schools to declare/publish open slots/positions they are recruiting for

2) Allow players to sign early during one week of the Summer. this commitment would be an early LOI with a out clause (below) that if not executed, would be considered binding to that school.

3) Once a player signs early to take one of those slots, the school must “close” the recruiting of that position slot. Basically once you have someone’s commitment you want, you can’t over recruit as a backup.

4) Prevent all contact to early commits from any other school other than the one he committed to. This prevents stress on the players and their families if they want out of the circus early. This also simplifies the continued wooing of that player to the school they commit to.

5) Out Clause: Allow the early commits one week at the end of the season to withdraw their commitment for any reason and go back on the open market. they do so with the risk that other slots may not be open for them but this allows a mistake to be amended in some way but forces them to sleep on it throughout the season and

6) If an early commit withdraws their commitment they cannot sign again until NSD. This give teams a solid two months to get back into the race with that player and sets up the last battles for NSD.

Having some structured process to an early commitment, would require the player to really think about his commitment before he made it. While having the out clause in place would prevent a terrible mistake, it would take him out of the recruitment race for the whole season so the consequence could be material. Additionally, this would force teams to think hard about the commitments they would take. If these players aren’t their first choice, they might not extend the offer prior to the early signing period.