For Nebraska football fans who follow recruiting, it feels like there are a couple of different holidays to celebrate in December. There are the biggies, the ones that have been around for quite a while. The ones that have songs written to commemorate. And then there’s the holiday that’s barely learned to walk.
The Early Signing Period was something implemented in 2017 as a way to make it a bit easier on college football recruits. At least, that was the pitch. The idea was that these kids don’t need to wait until February to sign with their school if they don’t want to. If they want the recruiting process to be over sooner they can end it. Now it appears the early signing period is on the brink of being ended.
There’s nothing official but the SEC’s Greg Sankey voiced his displeasure with the early signing period in a new article by The Athletic. His comments were strong enough that it felt like the first domino.
The crux of Sankey’s argument is solid. There’s simply too much going on in December. There’s the end of the regular season. There’s the coaching carousel, there’s early signing period and now there’s the transfer portal.
Early signing period is going away quick pic.twitter.com/K8cKDQRxmc
— Oliver VanDervoort (@itmeolliev) January 8, 2023
Nebraska football fans are well aware of the crush of time that comes at the end of November and into December. There was more than a few worried that the coaching search would drag on into the window where coaches are supposed to be working on improving their roster.
Sankey is the first voice calling for the December calendar to be thinned out, but he’s almost certainly not going to be the last. It seems likely that the early signing period is going to go away if for no other reason than it hasn’t been around all that long.
Nebraska football fans probably haven’t seen the last early signing period. But it seems unlikely the 5-year-old is going to become an adolescent.