First Down Kentucky: A Change in the Recruiting Calendar

The college football calendar is a mess. The NFL operates with some intuitiveness. The coaching carousel begins spinning once the regular season ends, followed by the postseason. Then there’s a lull before free agency begins, and then about a month after players make moves, there’s a draft.

College football does all of that over a four-week period. Coaches are fired as soon as the season ends before teams learn their postseason fate. All of that happens while schools try to solidify their draft class (high school recruiting) and seek free agency signings (transfer portal). The sport is moving to stagger this process ever so slightly.

Tom Wistrcill, the Big Sky commissioner who heads up the NLI subcommittee, tells The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach that the NCAA is in “advanced discussions” to move up the Early Signing Period. Instead of signing a high school class in the third week of December, under this proposal, it will happen two weeks earlier at the start of the month, before the transfer portal window opens.

Impact of an Earlier Early Signing Period on Recruiting

There is a clear benefit to this move. Instead of juggling high school recruits and transfer portal players, the month of December will be reserved almost exclusively for roster retention and the recruitment of free agents.

Things were already trending in this direction. Instead of using multiple weekends to host high school official visitors, that was trimmed to just one for the Wildcats in 2023. Cam Dooley was the only Kentucky commitment on signing day as Stoops’ staff spent most of the month working in the portal.

The biggest negative of this move is it greatly diminishes what was once a glorified National Signing Day. That was already the case when Signing Day moved from February to December. Now it will be shoe-horned in four days after the final game of the regular season. For folks in the media, instead of recapping the regular season, it will be a sprint to prepare for Signing Day.

It’s impossible to find a perfect time for signing day. In modern college football, 60% or more of the high school class is enrolling early for the spring semester. They can’t move Signing Day back to February, so this slight shift will have to do.

Another Potential Change in the Recruiting Calendar

The NLI subcommittee shared with Auerbach one other option they’re kicking around, the inception of a signing period in the summer. While it may make sense in some instances, the unintended consequences could create another headache.

The month of June has become the most popular time for college football prospects to take official visits. Most players want to know where they’ll be attending college before starting their final season of high school football. About half of Kentucky’s 2024 recruiting class committed over the summer.

While it may make sense to adopt another earlier signing period that mirrors what happens in basketball, this may create a rush for schools to complete their class early. This could cause teams to miss out on late bloomers and prevent a school from capitalizing on the recruiting trail following a successful season. It works the other way too. A disastrous fall campaign can get a coach fired, and release the floodgates of players who want to be released from their NLIs.

Moving the signing day up two weeks is a decent compromise for the college football calendar, but the NCAA should pump the brakes on adding a signing period in the summer.

Kentucky Gains Momentum with 4-Star Wide Receiver

Following a trip to Lexington for Kentucky Junior Day, Cameron Miller has saved the date for a return trip. A four-star pass-catcher from New Jersey, On3 ranks Miller as the No. 165 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. He shared yesterday that he’ll visit Wisconsin on March 22, followed by a trip to Lexington on March 30. Justin Rowland recently submitted a prediction for Kentucky to land the top-flight receiver who had some nice things to say about the Wildcats, particularly WR coach Daikiel Shorts, in a conversation with KSR+.

“He’s a great dude and he loves his receivers,” Miller said. “When I was down there, one of his guys was working out and he was asking to make sure his schoolwork was done. He was checking up on those guys and making sure they’re on top of the things they’re supposed to be on top of. It was great seeing that from a player’s point of view.”