By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:
EARLY SIGNING DAY IS HERE … I LIKED THE OLD WAY BETTER
The early signing day which begins at 7 a.m. when the first faxes start rolling in wherever college football is played is a sign of progress. Not only do we still have the February signing date, but we’ve got one in December, too, and probably 80 percent of all the kids who will sign a Division I scholarship will sign today. Florida’s recruiting class was already lagging behind, but since Dan Mullen was fired and Billy Napier was hired, it is going to be a slim Wednesday for the Gators.
I’m of the opinion that the early signing period stinks and is one of the root causes of much that is wrong with college football these days. Personally, I’d like to see the early signing period eliminated completely with one exception and go back to the way things used to be for the good of the game.
As I look back on the days when there was only one national signing day – the first Wednesday in February – I think college football was in a much better place than it is today. From a fan and personal standpoint, I liked the buildup of excitement leading up to the traditional NSD that we used to have. Once the college football season ended, we had the recruiting season which occupied the entire month of January. People used to take the entire day off work on National Signing Day because nothing was assured until the fax rolled in. We had master flippers (Will Muschamp was great at flipping recruits at the last minute when he was UF’s head coach) and signing day surprises. Florida fans used to panic because FSU held its football banquet on the Saturday night before NSD and for years Bobby Bowden landed one formerly uncommitted 5-star recruit after another that weekend.
We had February adventures that we no longer have that added to the excitement and kept people talking for months on end. One memorable example is the Wednesday morning of February 3, 1999. Early morning, Anquan Boldin called Steve Spurrier to tell him he was going to sign with Florida at 8:30 a.m., but when 8:30 rolled around it was announced that the announcement would be delayed for an hour. Allegedly, Boldin needed the time to pray about his decision with a pastor there in Pahokee. At 10 a.m. Boldin signed with Florida State after much prayer and supplication. There were hot and heavy rumors that a brand new garnet and gold Ford Explorer – obviously sent down from heaven from God himself during the prayer time – was a sign that (a) the Almighty himself wanted Boldin to sign with FSU and (b) that Steve Spurrier would never play a black quarterback but would switch him to wide receiver. Funny how Anquan was switched to wide receiver on either the second or third day of FSU’s August camp.
Boldin and running back Nick Maddox, another one who told Spurrier he was going to be a Gator an hour before he signed with FSU that morning, were part of a small FSU class that was going to set the world on fire. They didn’t. Florida’s far less heralded class was deemed a bust by the “recruiting gurus” because Boldin and Maddox pulled their signing day surprises.
That “bust” of a Florida class produced three first or second team All-Americas (Rex Grossman, Jabar Gaffney and Lito Sheppard), six first or second team All-SEC selections (Grossman, Gaffney, Sheppard, Daryl Dixon, Taylor Jacobs and Bobby McCray), nine who started at least two years (Grossman, Gaffney, Sheppard, Jacobs, McCray, Dixon, Bam Hardmon, Clint Mitchell and Mike Nattiel) and 11 who were either drafted by the NFL or signed as free agents (Grossman, Gaffney, Sheppard, Dixon, Jacobs, McCray, Nattiel, Hardmon, Mitchell, Tron LaFavor, Ran Carthon and Matt Farrior).
Anyone remember Lobster Willie’s Big Adventure in Tallahassee in 2001? FSU was never the same after Willie Williams spent the banquet weekend in Tallahassee and then signed three days later with Miami.
I actually miss those days. It was more fun, but I believe it was better for both coaches and kids that there was only one National Signing Day in February. When the early signing date in December was put in place, it seemed like a good idea at the moment. Like so many things the NCAA puts in place, there have been far reaching unintended consequences and this is even before we factor in the transfer portal and NIL.
For years it was argued that a December signing period would allow kids who had made up their minds to get their recruiting out of the way. One of the cornerstones of the argument was kids who had made up their minds became dazed and confused by all the pressure in February. So, we got an early signing period and instead of a few kids signing early, the bulk of every recruiting class at the higher levels of Division I has been almost completely filled, leaving only a few stragglers who perhaps hadn’t qualified academically in December to sign in February or got cold feet back and decided to wait.
I don’t have the exact percentages, but a lot more coaches are getting fired during the season since the early signing date was implemented and new coaches are hired quickly to come in and salvage the recruiting class. With rare exceptions, when a head coach is fired, nearly every assistant coach who’s been busting on the recruiting trail also gets canned.
It happened at Florida. Dan Mullen was fired the Sunday before the Gators’ final game. The following Sunday, Billy Napier was hired from Louisiana for seven years and $51.4 million after taking the Ragin Cajuns to an 11-1 regular season. Napier wasn’t introduced until the Sunday after Louisiana beat Appalachian State for the Sun Belt Conference championship on December 4. He’s had 10 days to dismiss all of Dan Mullen’s assistant coaches, hire four new assistants, and deal with recruiting. Most of the kids who were committed to Mullen such as quarterback Nick Evers (to Oklahoma), wide receiver CJ Smith (to Georgia) and wide receiver/athlete Isaiah Bond (to Alabama) have de-committed the Gators for other destinations.
Unless Napier is a recruiting magician capable of pulling proverbial rabbits out of a hat, this will be the kind of December signing class that is going to make a lot of Gators nervous. We were warned of this back on December 5 when Napier said Florida’s recruiting class would really take shape in January after he had a full coaching and an “army” of support staffers in place to sign kids that didn’t put their signature on an LOI and transfers. More than a few Gator fans are already writing off the 2022 recruiting class.
Florida’s situation isn’t all that unusual. There are currently 130 schools in Division I. Twenty-eight coaches were fired in 2021, one before the season even began (Les Miles, Kansas), most during the season and a couple after the regular season concluded. The ripple effect is enormous when you add the number of recruits affected by coaching changes to the number of assistant coaches, strength and conditioning staff, recruiting coordinators and other staffers who are now in limbo.
Another unintended consequence of all the firings is record salary inflation. Concerned that LSU would come after Mel Tucker, Michigan State gave him a 10-year deal worth $100 million. Jimbo Fisher, who signed a contract extension that added 10 years to his existing deal and raised his pay to somewhere between $9-10 million, turned down $125 million to leave Texas A&M for LSU. Lincoln Riley was offered the same deal. LSU ended up hiring Brian Kelly from Notre Dame with a 10-year $95 million deal. LSU fans are likely to boast about the $30 million saved by hiring Kelly.
When Southern Cal showed interest in James Franklin, Penn State gave him a 10-year deal that has $70 million guaranteed. Southern Cal interviewed several other coaches but ended up hiring Lincoln Riley away from Oklahoma for eight years at $13 million a year with unheard of perks such as USC buying his two houses, giving him a $6 million mansion in LA and unlimited use of a private plane. Miami fired Manny Diaz while he was out recruiting and on the same day hired Mario Cristobal away from Oregon for 10 years and $80 million.
All this just to have a coach in place before the early signing period.
An unintended consequence of the College Football Playoff is the bowls have been neutered. Kids who aren’t playing for the four playoff teams, are opting out of bowl games. Mullen had to endure a flogging at the hands of Oklahoma in last year’s Cotton Bowl when Kyle Trask’s three top receivers – All-Americans Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney plus Trevon Grimes – were among several Gators who opted out, claiming they were fearful of injuries that could hinder their NFL Draft status. C.J. Henderson did the same thing the year before when he opted out of the Orange Bowl. The playoff has made bowls dinosaurs whose only hope of survival is an expanded playoff with lesser bowls becoming the equivalent of the NIT.
The bowls are traditional but traditions seem to have no place in the game these days. When you add in the transfer portal and NIL, it’s not difficult to surmise that college football is in a very bad place. We’ve seen kids entering the transfer portal during the season, which was never intended. Last year’s record total of 2,626 transfers will likely pale in comparison to the number who are looking for a new place to play this year. How many of the transfers are leaving because of coaching changes? How many are freshmen or sophomores who aren’t willing to hang around and compete for a job, figuring it’s easier to simply go somewhere else? How many of the transfers are leaving for a new school because they (a) didn’t get an NIL deal at their current school or (b) have heard that kids at another school are making big bucks off NIL?
We’re not going to eliminate the transfer portal nor is NIL going to be cut off, but here are five practical solutions that could bring some measure of sanity back to college football before it literally destroys itself.
1. Seriously reduce the number of kids who can sign early: You do this by allowing only those who (a) are academically qualified to enroll in January and (b) have been accepted. It’s rare that more than 9-10 kids enroll early leaving the bulk of the recruiting class to sign in February.
2. Make December a dead period for high school/juco recruiting except to sign early enrollees: This would go a long way toward eliminating the in-season firings. Athletic directors who have dismissed their head coaches would have an entire month to find a new head coach without rushing one in place for the ESP. The new coach would have time to hire his staff and spend January recruiting kids who are going to sign in February.
3. Set windows for kids to enter the transfer portal: Coaches admit they are spending way too much time re-recruiting players on their current rosters throughout the season. One way to solve this is to set a 10-day period in December and a 30-day period in May for kids to transfer. If a kid doesn’t use the designated transfer portal windows, he has to sit the next year. The only exceptions should be legitimate health concerns of a parent or family member that can be documented.
4. Set academic standards for kids who want to transfer: Any kid who wants to transfer out who doesn’t have at least a 2.5 GPA will have to sit a year. No exceptions.
5. You can’t eliminate NIL, but you can eliminate NIL deals from August until the College Football Playoff is over: This doesn’t change a kid’s ability to make money off his name, image or likeness, but it eliminates the kid doing business during the season then using it as a reason to transfer out.
There are probably other solutions out there that make every bit as much sense, but it’s time for very smart people to put their heads together to come up with a plan that can save college football from destroying itself. Eliminating or seriously tweaking the early signing period would be a good place to begin.
n.rivals.com
