Early signing period for SEC?

The SEC coaches voted 9-3 in favor of a 24-hour "Early Signing" window in late-November on the Monday before the contact period begins.

ESPN - SEC coaches hoping for early signing day in late November

A major benefit of this would be that if a kid is ready to commit (with a written Letter of Intent - the only "real" commitment) to a school at that time, they can. This would prevent schools from having to spend time and resources recruiting these kids until the first week of February - National Signing Day (NSD).

It wouldn't be such a big deal, except that there has been an ugly trend developing recently where situations like this arise:

* Kid verbally commits to School A in, say, October.
* School A says "thanks", and turns it's attention to it's 24 other scholarships it is trying to fill
* Around January, Kid starts to feel ignored by School A
* School B checks Rivals.com, sees Kid has committed to School A, and thinks "Huh... we never noticed him. Let's go get him!"
* School B swoops in, weeks before NSD, with a shower of recruiting attention on Kid
* Kid feels loved again, and signs his LOI with School B on NSD
* School A complains that School B "stole" their recruit

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It definitely favors the Texas's, Florida's and USC's of the world, who have a huge pool of great local athletes beating down their door to play for them.

For the have-not schools, or schools in less-populated areas, that recruiting time in December in January is critical. How are coaches in the Midwest supposed to recruit in Texas and Florida during the season? They can't.

I admire Urban Meyer for opposing this. He has every reason to want to lock his local recruits up early, before the northern schools start booking their recruiting trips to the Sunshine State.

In the end, I don't like it. Maybe it's because my team is a have-not, and I'm used to rooting for the underdog, but I'm not in favor of any new rules that help the rich get richer in College Football.

By the way, if you want a better understanding of how the recruiting process works in College Football, pick up this book. It's a quick read, and your wife will be impressed that you actually read a book.