Paul Johnson with a great suggestion

[FreePawn]

By Michael Carvell

Everybody pretty much agrees that college recruiting and signing day has turned into a circus.

Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson has an idea on how to fix some of the issues:

“If I were going to do it, I’d go back to the old way where every team had 85 scholarships. You could sign no more than 25 in a year, and you could sign them whenever.

“Once they started classes for their senior year of high school, they are fair game. And when you’ve got your 25, then you’re finished. If those guys didn’t qualify or didn’t make it, you couldn’t replace them. You took those 25.

“Then it would put the onus on the better student-athletes doing it the right way. If (others) were good enough players and you wanted to take a chance on them not making it, you could take them but they would be one of your 25. You couldn’t go back and replace them when they didn’t make it.

“That way, you would stop all the foolishness, too. There would be no commitments because if a kid says ‘Yeah, I want to come,’ then you’d give them the papers and they would sign. If they weren’t ready, they’d wait until the end of the signing period.”

And what would be the result of doing it this way?

“I think what would happen is … I don’t know how many you would see sign early, but there would be some who know what school they wanted to go to. They’ve been wanting to go there forever. And they’ll know that a school has only 25 scholarships. Once a school would sign 23 guys, and you wanted to go to school there, you better take it.

“It would help the kids. And it would help everybody. If you’re (a kid and) not ready, and you don’t know where you want to go, you’d say ‘Hey, I’m not ready. I’m going to take my visits and decide later.’ It would stop all the foolishness and craziness that goes on.”

We always like it when people think outside of the box.

The positives of having an early signing period – or really no signing period – would include ceasing a lot of the current drama that drags on until February (and is so much fun to follow and read about). It would also take away a lot of distractions from high school seniors trying to focus on academics and graduation, along with severely cut down on the amount of time that college coaches have to waste on a kid who commits early but continues to flirt with the competition.

Probably the biggest negative (and the real reason I suspect we don’t have an early signing period in football) would be kids and colleges stuck with each other if there’s a coaching change. If a kid signs early with a coach and that coach is later fired after the season, then the new coach may want his own recruits or the kid may want to play elsewhere because of the change. It’s a rough situation for both parties.

However, both sides seem to deal with this issue just fine in every other college sport where there’s an early signing period, although the recruiting classes are much, much smaller in the other sports.

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[Andrew]

This would be bad and force players to miss on the chance to go to a school with better academics than first offered. Johnson is upset because he loses players when they find better opportunities. Johnson gets commits by telling them he won't hold their scholarship.

 

[User-4525]

wouldn't work in football, different type of beast

 

[BigCaneAl]

wouldn't work in football, different type of beast

Signing day would just move the first day of class senior year....no difference.

 

[NorthFlaCane]

Would be good for the players and coaches. Would add a lot more certainty to the process, and allow kids to focus on their senior year of high school.

 

[Larry]

I like the idea of an early signing period...perhaps sometime in August, right before senior year starts.

As is, the way the recruiting schedule is, its very inefficient for schools. And, for the student-athletes, can be very invasive to school with countless coaches calling, and visiting and recruiting writers always calling, etc.

Early signing period would help both schools and student athletes, IMO.

 

[DaU83]

I don't see why they can't do that and stipulate that if the staff you committed to gets fired you're allowed out.. It's really that simple.

 

[umhurricano]

This would be bad and force players to miss on the chance to go to a school with better academics than first offered. Johnson is upset because he loses players when they find better opportunities. Johnson gets commits by telling them he won't hold their scholarship.

If that would be the result shouldn't the current system favor the gatechs of the world who have good academics?

 

[PatrickCane]

I agree with him. No signing day and as of day 1 of their senior year they can sign the papers. Once they sign its over and if they want to wait until the end of their senior year they can. No signing period - you sign whenever you want. A kid can get out if the head coach leaves/gets canned. I'd also ban media outlets from contacting any kid under 18. If the kid wants to go to a news outlet they have that right but stop the media from over-inflating these kids egos before they have played 1 down.

It ends this abortion that goes on in February.

 

[IHATETHISPLACE]

Johnson is just ****ed he gets killed on the recruiting trail

 

[nadiamufdi]

Johnson is not a good recruiter and is trying to cover his shortcomings here.

I do think an early signing period, like they have in bball, would be favorable though

 

[Dan E. Dangerously]

I like an early signing period that ends in August before their senior seasons. Kids that have their mind made up can go ahead and sign. The others are open until signing day. The only way to back out would be if there was a change in head coach before their fist season in college started.

 

[IHATETHISPLACE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

 

[USNAVYCANE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, plus there are not many good local players coming out of bama or louisiana also bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

 

[IHATETHISPLACE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

 

[USNAVYCANE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

they do over sign in fact they over signed again this year

 

[USNAVYCANE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

they do over sign in fact they over signed again this year

Alabama signed 26 players to the 2013 national recruiting class. That put the Crimson Tide at 95—10 over the 85 scholarship maximum.

 

[IHATETHISPLACE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

they do over sign in fact they over signed again this year

Yes they did oversign but your 38 players commit was wrong. Teams with big budgets & fertile recruiting grounds would love an early signing period

 

[USNAVYCANE]

BTW if this happened schools like Florida Alabama and LSU would have even better years on the recruiting trail. They would have all the great athletes with good grades that are local committed and signed then they could go national.

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

they do over sign in fact they over signed again this year

Yes they did oversign but your 38 players commit was wrong. Teams with big budgets & fertile recruiting grounds would love an early signing period

well its still pretty close when they could only sign 14 players they signed 26.....Yes and thet would be Miami

 

[IHATETHISPLACE]

it would hurt them the most, bama would no longer be able to sign 38 players

They dont sign 38 anyway you can only sign 25 per class in the SEC now. You are allowed to back count so say you sign 17 1 year the next year you can sign 33 as long as 8 were EE'S.

they do over sign in fact they over signed again this year

Yes they did oversign but your 38 players commit was wrong. Teams with big budgets & fertile recruiting grounds would love an early signing period

well its still pretty close when they could only sign 14 players they signed 26.....Yes and thet would be Miami

no its not close under what Johnson just said Bama would be fine, right now they only have 85 scholarships and the rule 25 per class in the SEC