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December signing period changes in-season recruiting
(STATS) - Recruiting is a never-ending pursuit for college football coaches with no break - even during the season.
This year, it's commanding even more attention alongside the X's and O's.
The traditional period for high school seniors to formalize their commitment to a school by signing a National Letter of Intent runs from the first Wednesday of February to April 1. For the first time this year, there also is an early signing period that will last for 72 hours from Dec. 20-22.
The new window is designed to allow players who want to end the recruiting process to secure their binding commitment about six weeks in advance.
"It's forced us to have a lot of official visits during the season, which is a little bit of a strain because, obviously, your primary focus is on the ballgame," James Madison coach Mike Houston said. "But you also have to be extremely focused on these players on the official visits because you wouldn't bring them on an official visit if they weren't a high-caliber player."
The reigning FCS champion Dukes are expected to sign more players during the December signing period than most programs in the subdivision. Some coaches will be able to count the number of early signees on one hand as many seniors figure to still use the traditional signing period.
The December period is expected to have a bigger impact with FBS programs, especially because FCS programs often have to wait out players who have aspirations - some real, some false - about signing with a school on the higher level of Division I. But many players, and the schools as well, will find out sooner just how serious each is about the other depending on if the NLI is offered and signed during the three days.
"We're at the mercy of the (FBS schools)," Eastern Washington coach Aaron Best said, "because a lot of times we have to find out what Washington State is doing, what the University of Washington is doing, what Boise State is doing.
"That has always been tough because it plays out to February, where we may now know in December what they're doing, so that may help us in the long run. It's a trial run this year, but we'll probably find ourselves signing a few kids in December, but not because we're making them, it's because they're wanting to do it - get their recruitment out of the way."
The 2017 season for most FCS programs will be over in three weeks, allowing recruiting to ramp up the week of Thanksgiving. Some programs are still striving to keep it delayed because that will mean they are playing in the postseason.
New Hampshire is seeking an FCS playoff bid for the 14th straight season, and coach Sean McDonnell wants to be forced into needing to find balance between his team playing games and the recruiting.
"For us, where we're at in the recruiting process, we're just going to hope to get some of the kids (verbally) committed to sign on the early date and then just see what falls after that," he said. "It's a process that will be much more cleared for our teams once that early sign date goes and the guys that sign with the FBS schools (are committed)."
Players are allowed to take up to five official visits in which schools can host them overnight, but, like in past years, that wasn't allowed to happen before the start of their senior year. It's brought on so much juggling on both ends during the season that North Dakota State coach Chris Klieman predicts "we're all gonna learn how fast it is going to come in December."
In future years, the beginning of the official visit period will move up to April of the players' junior years, which should ease the burden of recruiting and make it easier on the players and the coaching staffs.
"I do think that you'll see as the years go on," Houston said, "people will become a little more comfortable and kind of figure out a little bit what their strategy needs to be."
