We approach National Signing Day on which thousands of 17- and 18-year-olds will sign their one-year commitment to major colleges around the country. (That’s right—after one year, the school can end it if you are not worth it.) This time around, college coaches are agitating for an early signing period.

They are talking about it being in December or January, just 6–8 weeks before the regular signing day. This isn’t really that early, since it seems that nowadays everyone wants to give verbal commitments as soon as possible anyway (to end the recruiting process and stop the Internet rumors about them). And some disagree that the current proposal doesn’t make sense for a sport like football.

As a fan of college football and an outspoken critic of pretty much everything about how the game is run, I think that there should be an early signing period—in August. Get the kids signed before their senior year of HS so that they can just concentrate on being high school seniors. If a school believes a kid is the best as a junior then they should have no problem with him signing before he plays a down of his senior season. This also would hopefully stop the early offering some coaches do knowing that they can pull the scholarship later if the kid doesn’t play up to his “potential” in his last season.