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Dan Wetzel
Much has been made about how the “college football calendar” puts coaches in a difficult position – most famously how Lane Kiffin had to miss the playoff. ole miss So that he can begin recruiting for his new school, LSU.
Truly, there was no time to waste. The early signing period for high school recruits begins Wednesday. That’s why, within hours of landing in Baton Rouge, Kiffin welcomed the local five-star athlete lamar brown And his family in his office. (Brown said he would sign it with tigers,
However, the actual season is not over yet. The conference championship games are this weekend. The College Football Playoff runs from December 19 through January 19. Meanwhile, the game’s only transfer portal window will be open from January 2 to 15.
It’s an undeniable mess (we’ll get to one of the culprits later), similar to the NFL running the Super Bowl, draft and free agency simultaneously.
Yet of all the existing complaints, the people most affected are not millionaire college coaches.
These are high school recruits and their families.
Because of the early signing period, each coaching change – both firing and hiring – means that all members of recruiting classes (often 20 to 25 kids) must readjust and decide (often in just a few days or hours) whether to stick with their previous decision or try going to a new school.
And this is if the new coach also wants him.
“This whole process is not a process; it’s chaotic,” said Justin Csente, coach of Michigan state champion Detroit Catholic Central High School, which is expected to have five FBS signees this year. “And it’s the high school athletes who are hurt the most.”
Information is scarce. Decisions are given in a hurry. All but the most prestigious talents face time constraints, pressure to sign or are left behind.
Consider the case of Catholic Central’s three top seniors, all of whom spent years in the recruiting process with their families before being admitted in June.
offensive lineman benjamin ejiuka was headed towards penn stateAt least until coach James Franklin was fired midseason. The Nittany Lions have not hired a replacement, which obviously makes the move there complicated. Instead, Cesante said, Eziuka will follow Franklin Virginia TechWhich had not been considered until he appointed Franklin two weeks earlier.
tight end jack janda was going to wisconsinBut speculation about the future of Badgers coach Luke Fickell caused Janda to reconsider to avoid trouble. It has been revealed that Fickell will return next season, but is now expected to sign with Janda iowa,
Then there’s the wide receiver Samson Gashwas committed to michigan state Until the Spartans fired coach Jonathan Smith on Sunday. The school immediately hired Pat Fitzgerald, but with less than 48 hours until signing day, Gash reopened his recruitment.
“Those three guys chose before the season and then because of coaching changes and rumors, all three of them had to make late decisions,” Cesante said.
Lost in the flurry of confusion is “just the experience of it, the relationship-building, learning who you want to be with and where you want to be in the next four or five years,” Cesante said. “That should be the positive part.”
This is also the best way to choose the best possible option.
“It’s not a good thing to have less time to make the biggest decision of your life,” Cesante said.
The main issue is the early signing period.
By 2017, long after the coaches had settled into their new jobs, players signed letters of intent in February.
College coaches then lobbied for the creation of an “early” signing period in late December (usually starting on the 20th) so they could lock in players and encourage early enrollment. Coaches prefer kids who graduate early from high school and train in the spring semester in college.
However, since last year, again at the insistence of college coaches, the “early” period was moved even earlier, to the first Wednesday of December, right in the middle of the playoff race and the firing/recruiting cycle.
Coaches want certainty for themselves. As far as high school kids go, not so much.
Many will sign on Wednesday despite not knowing who their head coach will be, let alone their position coaches who often change jobs in December and January. Others may talk to the new person once. On the other hand, incoming employees have limited time (if any) to determine whether a recruit fits into their system.
What’s worse, every school will hit the transfer market in early January and effectively recruit incoming freshmen by bringing in more experienced players.
This assures that many well-intentioned recruits will be stuck in less-than-ideal situations – dealing with a depth chart they couldn’t envision for coaches they don’t know at campuses they’ll never have time to visit.
This is a recipe for additional transfers the following year, leading to some of the roster churn that college coaches consistently decry.
The solution to the “calendar” would be to eliminate, or at least discourage, early enrollment for high school recruiting, by moving the signing period back to February. Choosing a school after completing the coaching carousel and transfer portal will allow both high schoolers and the coaches recruiting them to get as much information as possible.
“We should have a standard expectation of what things will look like,” Cesante said. “And right now, there is no standard.”
This is the calendar that coaches demanded but now condemn because it makes them uncomfortable leaving the job.
Yet unlike them, high school kids don’t have a million-dollar buyout to fall back on.
