HOG CALLS

Early signing period a double-edged sword

Arkansas coach Bret Bielema during the game vs Missouri Friday, Nov. 24, 2017, at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE — The SEC should lead a charge rescinding for 2018 this new NCAA rule allowing high school senior football players to sign collegiate letters of intent from Dec. 20-22 rather than wait for the customary first February Wednesday start of the national signing period.

Despite often complaining of too many recruiting dead periods not allowing them time to get to know and vet the prospects they are recruiting, most collegiate football coaches pushed for this early signing option.

If the process operates like college basketball during the 1980s — first prefacing its traditional spring signing period with a November early signing period — most of football’s renowned recruits will sign early.

Some recruits and those recruiting them will regret the haste. Especially schools trying to recruit without a head coach, which now permeates the SEC.

Firing scandal-plagued Coach Hugh Freeze during the summer, Ole Miss labored all season with assistant Matt Luke as its interim head coach.

Before this 2017 regular season elapsed Saturday, Florida fired Jim McElwain and Tennessee fired Butch Jones, forcing both schools to operate with interim head coaches.

Arkansas fired Coach Bret Bielema minutes after the 4-8 Razorbacks ended their season with a 48-45 loss to Missouri last Friday afternoon.

Bielema didn’t last two days as the latest SEC casualty. Texas A&M fired Coach Kevin Sumlin on Sunday.

The Razorbacks currently operate under a double whammy: No head football coach and no athletic director in place yet for 2018.

With Athletic Director Jeff Long fired since Nov. 15, Arkansas Interim Athletic Director Julie Cromer Peoples announced Friday night that she is taking charge of the football coaching search while University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Chancellor Joe Steinmetz and the search committee he appointed hunt for a new athletic director.

Hiring a coach without his boss to be officially in charge is not ideal.

So go ask these schools and their lame-duck staffs in flux what they think now of the early December date that most coaches lobbied for and enthusiastically hailed.

Other than some of their in-state recruits determined to attend their state’s school, can they really expect those verbally committed to follow through signing in December with staffs they now don’t know and will have little time to get to know, even should these schools soon install a new coach?

A new coach’s new staff isn’t apt to form quickly, especially with the bowls to play, followed by the Jan. 8 national championship game.

And might some recruits, believing that they’ll just be considered leftovers in February vying for a couple of remaining scholarship slots, unwisely hastily sign in December rather than fully investigate their options?

Doesn’t the December signing period seem designed to accelerate pressure on high school seniors to graduate early at semester and get indoctrinated into college football through spring practice instead of enjoying that generally most carefree final high school semester that so many treasure for a lifetime?

For a sport whose leaders claim they are “all about the student-athlete,” this rush to December seems to be about everything but the “student-athlete.”

Go ask these schools and their lame-duck staffs in flux what they think now of the early December date that most coaches lobbied for and enthusiastically hailed.