Another week, another change to college football.
As the sport continues to “evolve”. there has been another new proposal set to go into effect as soon as next season.
College football’s early signing period, currently in the middle of December, will reportedly be moving to conference championship week.
The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach had the news first on Thursday night.
NEWS: College football's early signing period is expected to move to earlier in December — ahead of the opening of the transfer portal.
It'd begin the Wednesday before conference title games.
Leaders are also looking at adding a summer signing period: https://t.co/utwNl9DJC4
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) February 22, 2024
The topic will reportedly be discussed at next week’s meeting of the FBS Oversight Committee and then will be issued to a subcommittee that will formally recommend the change.
While the early signing period is currently in the midst of college football’s busiest time, the intersection of bowl season and the coaching carousel, moving it up feels like the sort of move that will do more harm than good, especially to bowl games.
With the expanded College Football Playoff, however, teams will now be playing first-round games in mid-December, so there has been a push to move the signing period up and let coaches be done with it before having to worry about offseason preparations.
Big Sky Commissioner Tom Wistrcill, who is the chairperson of the National Letter of Intent Subcommittee said the decision is to keep the transfer portal and signing period apart. “The biggest reason we’re doing this is to clear up the football recruiting calendar so the signing period and the transfer portal don’t overlap.” he said.
