New Early National Signing Period

When Is It?

December 20th-22nd (next Wednesday through Friday).

What Is It?

The early National Signing Day is a chance for colleges to go ahead and sign any of its commits to a scholarship. It is the same thing as the current National Signing Day, except it takes place in December instead of February.

Any given team is expected to sign around an estimated 80%+ of its 2018 recruiting class, so this is becoming the de facto National Signing Day(s) for college football.

What this means is that instead of waiting until early February to sign (like it has been done for years), there is now a period where 2018 commits can sign their National Letter of Intent early and be locked in to a scholarship with their respective school without waiting another month and a half.

Does This Take Place of the Regular National Signing Day?

No, it does not replace the current National Signing Day, as there is still one on February 7th, but most coaches believe that this will become the main National Signing Day in the future, leaving little fanfare for what used to be the real signing day.

How will it impact Wake Forest specifically?

In case you haven’t noticed, the Wake Forest coaching staff has been on a tear as of late in getting commits for the 2018 class and I would guess that a lot of that is being driven by this early signing period.

The staff likely wants to go ahead and get the class filled as quickly as possible, which will allow for a month and a half or so of targeting the final guys who are still out there for the ‘18 class.

While head coach Dave Clawson may be adamantly against this, and personally I think that it’s not great for the kids, I think it works well for Wake Forest.

Why do I think that?

To start off, I am working under the impression that Coach Clawson and the staff will encourage as many commits as possible to go ahead and sign with Wake Forest.

Obviously once they are signed they cannot go to another school without sitting out a year, so that locks them in with Wake.

I believe that this early signing period lowers the chances that “bigger” name schools will poach the commits that Wake has before they sign with the Deacs.

While coaches have certainly been out and about on the recruiting trail, with the season wrapping up and bowl preparations under way there is certainly not the same attention to detail towards recruiting that could normally be devoted to trying to flip a player before a February signing period.

Basically if a team wants to get one of the 21 guys Wake currently has committed then it needs to do so between now and next Wednesday.

This also provides the Deacs (and everybody else) with a chance to assess the final spots on its roster for 2018 and adjust for any transfers or departures.

For Wake it could also be a great opportunity to continue to work on a high school player who is not quite sure where they want to attend, and also address any unexpected de-commits or holdouts who did not sign during December.

Additionally, if a player who is committed to a school does not sign early then it signals to every other school out there that he is not “truly” committed and wants to leave the door open.

This could work out well for Wake to try to grab some sleepers on G-5 teams who haven’t signed yet.

What Will Blogger So Dear do to Cover This?

For you, the reader, all you need to know is that we will be covering this just like we would normally cover National Signing Day in early February. We will have individual articles on every player, an updated scholarship chart, and breakdowns once we see the dust settle as far as who signs and who doesn’t sign.

If there are any questions then feel free to leave drop a comment here and we will gladly answer it, as there is a good bit of uncertainty surrounding a lot of this change.