Georgia Athletic Coaches Association releases statement against potential June signing period

Earlier this month, the College Commissioners Association announced that beginning in 2024, college football’s early signing period will move up in December and occur the week before conference championship games, as well as the opening of the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Last month, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that officials were proposing changes to the recruiting calendar that would add a third signing period on the last Wednesday in June, beginning in 2025. The CCA is now aiming for an in-person meeting in June to make a decision on the potential new period, per Thamel.

On Thursday, the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association and Georgia Football Coaches Association released a joint statement condemning the prospect of a June signing period:

“The Georgia Athletic Coaches Association would like to make a public statement in regards to the potential June signing period for high school football players. Navigating the current recruiting calendar is already a difficult task for High School Football Coaches in Georgia. The GACA is against a June signing period and feel it will cause more issues for the high school programs and is not healthy for our game. A June signing period could lead to a large increase in kids re-classifying, which will cause a number of issues. We hope the decision makers will appreciate our concerns as a coach’s association in Georgia and that many other state associations share the same concerns about the June signing period.”

If the June signing period were to be implemented into the recruiting calendar, the three periods would occur on the last Wednesday in June, the Wednesday following the regular season, as well as the first Wednesday in February.

Nick Saban previously pointed out problems with the Early Signing Period in the current calendar

The early signing period came about prior to the 2017-18 season and allowed recruits to sign their National Letters of Intent in December. But the calendar has been jam-packed over the last couple years with the transfer portal window now opening after the final College Football Playoff reveal. This past season, the final CFP top 25 came out Dec. 3 and the portal window opened the next day on Dec. 4. National Signing Day was just over two weeks later on Dec. 20.

In what turned out to be his final signing day press conference, former Alabama coach Nick Saban pointed out the issues with the current setup. He noted the Crimson Tide had to balance CFP preparation with the portal window open and finalizing the early signees.

“The whole recruiting process, when we had the early signing date years ago, we said this would be come the signing date,” Saban said. “Well, it also just moved the recruiting calendar up, like, six months, aight? So players visit in the summer time. That’s when most guys visit. We used to have tons of guys visit in January. We’ll have very few guys visiting in January. The whole thing is kind of pushed forward. I don’t know how to answer.

“There’s just a lot of things happening right now, aight, that kind of take our time and focus and attention — the game’s important, recruiting’s important our team’s important. We’re trying to manage our time the best that we can to do a good job in all those areas so that we can finish.”