Nebraska, Big Ten Conference Pushing Change To Football Signing Day Rules
Former Nebraska football coach Bo Pelini had long talked about wanting to move up national signing day, and now it looks like his former boss might be helping to get that done.
This past week, Nebraska athletic director has been attending the Big Ten conference meetings and the issue of football’s National Signing Day has been on attendees’ tongues early and often. Because of this, it appears there may be changes coming soon to how recruiting in Nebraska and across the college football landscape is done.
Eichorst talked to the Omaha World-Herald shortly after one meeting ended and he said there was more optimism surrounding a change to National Signing Day than he’s ever seen before.
“The devil is in the details. I have not heard folks are totally opposed to revisiting the entire recruiting calendar.” Eichorst said. He went on to claim he feels a change is something the NCAA is going to have to make eventually.
“The devil is in the details. I have not heard folks are totally opposed to revisiting the entire recruiting calendar.”
One of the reasons the Nebraska athletic director pointed to was how football recruiting has become a much more national endeavor than it used to be.
Schools that have a high population of division one talent in their regions have long had an edge, but programs like the Nebraska football team are starting to make inroads in poaching from those regions.
So why is the change suddenly on the cusp of being carried out, after more than a decade of talk about the need? The way the NCAA has changed its governance rules, allowing the Power Five to write new rules in pencil is the catalyst.
If there is going to be a holdup to changing rules like when paid official visits can occur and whether signing day might get moved up to December, it appears the Big Ten will play a part in working out the kinks.
Eichorst and the athletic director for Northwestern play prominent roles on the NCAA rules committee. To enact change, the conference will likely need to agree on whether or not a December signing day is needed.
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It appears Nebraska is going to be pushing changes in football recruiting pretty hard over the next few months. Eichorst has said he doesn’t believe anything is off the table. The fourth-year athletic director added he wanted to keep Nebraska football and college football as health as possible, at all levels.