College football fans used to treat the first Wednesday of February like a virtual national holiday. Now that recruiting ritual and all the madness surrounding it has shifted to December.

Most schools are signing nearly all their incoming recruits the week before Christmas.

The arrival of an early signing period last year enticed the vast majority of last year’s top seniors to finalize their college plans in December. Coaches and recruiting analysts expect that pattern to continue for the foreseeable future – and they’ve planned accordingly.

“I just think everybody sees (December) as the new signing date, in my opinion,” Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy said.

This year’s early signing period begins Wednesday and runs through Friday. Seniors also have the option of waiting until the Feb. 6 signing date. ESPN director of recruiting Tom Luginbill said 72 percent of last year’s recruiting class signed in December rather than February.

“I would be surprised if that’s not closer to 75-80 this time around,” Luginbill said.

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That doesn’t surprise Bruce Rollinson, longtime Santa Ana (California) Mater Dei coach, whose program has six of the nation’s top 350 senior prospects according to composite rankings of recruiting sites compiled by 247Sports.

“Right now statistically I’m hearing anywhere from 80-85 percent of the top players are going to sign Wednesday,” Rollinson said. “Well, if I’m a parent, I’m looking at that and saying we’d better be careful here, get signed and lock down this scholarship and not take our chances with a pool of 15 percent or 20 percent of the scholarships that are still available.”

The December signing period created uncertainty in last year’s recruiting cycle because nobody knew just how many seniors would end their college selection process before the winter holidays.

Now they have a better idea.

“I think all of us coaches would tell you it surprised us that so many kids wanted to get it done and signed in December,” Texas Coach Tom Herman said.

The change in the recruiting calendar has forced most programs to adjust. That includes offering prospects earlier and getting more of them on campus for official visits in the spring. Once this early signing period has ended, most teams will only be pursuing a few more high school seniors while shifting their attention to the sophomore and junior classes.

“The way you go about your business has totally changed,” Texas A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher said.


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