Early Signing Period: Loved By Coaches, Hated By Conferences

Recruiting starts earlier every year and gets more coverage every year. Those trends combine to bring a record number of decommitments every year, annoying fans and coaches, but apparently not conference commissioners.

The American Football Coaches' Association (AFCA) has brought forth legislation to institute an early signing period in late December that almost three-quarters of I-A coaches support, but the conferences ain't having it:

"It wasn't that close a vote," SEC associate commissioner Greg Sankey, who attended the vote at the NCAA convention, told The Associated Press. "I would say for now an early signing period is done. I wouldn't want to suggest there's not another idea out there. But there's not one that's been identified at this point."

Sankey goes on to say "When you start breaking it down and dissecting it, you say, 'That's not going to work. That's not going to work. That's not going to work,' " without actually providing any justifications. Why, exactly, is a late-December signing period impossible to work with? Why can basketball have an early period in which the vast majority of recruits sign, but not football? Why go against something that 73% of coaches support?

No answers are provided. Lame.