that Urban Meyer was against it considering his agressive recruiting nature. But I can agree with his rationale. Recruiting is sometimes a crapshoot as it is, with the star system (Sean Lee, Deon Butler, etc) so coaches need as much time as possible to evaluate these kids.

I also remember reading one of the coaches (I think it was Paterno but not sure) say that we shouldn’t be moving the signing day up b/c it also puts undue pressure on the kids. This is a huge decision for them and a lot of things happen during the year that might make a kid change his mind…but with an early signing period he’d be locked in a binding contract.

one thing that gets overlooked is the potential benefit to non-bcs schools and bcs programs that don’t recruit as well. an earlier date means you have to decide before or during their junior year, so there is the potential for these programs to pick up on quality guys that aren’t noticed until their senior season.

My thoughts were that Saban and Meyer both represent the new school approach. Both run their program very much like a business and are avid recruiters. I would expect that both of them would want very similar rules in place as far as what they can and cannot do on the recruiting trail. I think, on the surface anyway, you would expect their interests to be aligned. I mention it only because I think it’s interesting that they have different opinions on this topic.

They are both relentless recruiters, but they have different styles. Saban likes to get out early on kids and lock them up fast. He doesn’t want to have to babysit his verbals all season long.

Meyer on the other hand does his best recruiting in December and January. Remember after they won the NC in 2006 he landed five or six kids in January by getting them to defect from other schools. Of course he’s not going to want an early signing period.

Joe goes back to a quote from Rip Engle that is awesome….I wonder if he had a stenographer write it on a stone tablet back then…flinstones style hahahahahaha

still a good quote though…Take Care of who you have now then recruit…how can you say it better than that

called EARLY ENROLLMENT…I wonder if these guys ever heard of it, if a player is truly committed to the team he will take care of his HS shit and graduate early so he can get into classes in the spring semester…case in point DWill and JKing

that gets around the early signing question

Nothing more committing than actually taking classes at the school for whose team you will playing. Of course, this only covers those players with the “grey matter” to graduate early.

That all of the coaches voted the way they voted to protect the way they recruit. It doesn’t seem like anybody gave five seconds worth of thought to what is the most fair (to the players) way to handle recruiting.

As far as an early signing period goes, perhaps you should be allowed to take one junior at the same time as the normal class, but the one junior is absolutely guaranteed five years of absolutely free college, whether he gets hurt, doesn’t make the team, etc.

One of the problems in the SEC is they take more kids than they have room for, and essentially don’t honor the true intent of the scholarship offer. If you had to waste a scholarship on a guy no matter how he performed, I think the SEC folks would just as soon not sign binding LsOI with 16 year olds.