Saban fears early signing period will limit evaluation process
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Don’t get Alabama head coach Nick Saban wrong, he’s totally for an early signing period — at least on paper. It’s how the new rule will play out in actuality that has him worried.
The Collegiate Commissioners Association approved an early signing period earlier this month that will allow 2018 recruits to sign from Dec. 20-22 this year before next year’s National Signing Day, which will be on Feb. 7, 2018.
Speaking at the Regions Tradition Pro-Am on Wednesday, Saban said he believes the rule should allow recruits who know where they want to go to end the recruiting process earlier. Although, while eliminating possible hassles sounds like a good idea, in theory, the head coach is worried it might cause for more as well.
“The fear is the new signing period will become the signing period,” Saban said. “There’s a lot of legislation to change the recruiting calendar, and there are things out there about guys visiting in April and May and June of their junior year. I think that’s the part that is most fearful in terms of we use the spring now to evaluate.”
Saban has made it clear he doesn’t want the recruiting calendar to be accelerated due to the new rule change. During the SEC Spring Football Teleconference on Monday, he called football a “developmental game,” stating rushing through the evaluation process would lead to missed opportunities for late bloomers and more mistakes from coaches. Wednesday he reiterated that belief, saying if evaluation periods are moved up, coaches will not be able to dedicate the same amount of focus to judging a player’s ability.
“We’re going to be recruiting guys at the same time we’re out there trying to watch them in spring practice and evaluate them,” Saban said. “Football is a developmental game, and I think the earlier you have to make decisions the more mistakes that you’ll make. We love our evaluation process, but we’re going to have to tweak it if that’s the case. That’s the direction everything’s moving in.”
So far, Saban hasn’t had to make any changes to how Alabama evaluates his players. The Crimson Tide currently ranks No. 41 in the recruiting rankings with three players in its 2018 class. That gives Alabama space for 22 more recruits in this year’s class before it reaches the SEC’s 25-player cap.
“We're going about the process and how we do things in the spring like we always do,” Saban said Monday. “Our philosophy is we want to make sure we get however many players we can take — I think it's 22 this year or whatever — we want to get 22 good players that have good character that want to commit to the same kind of things that we do here at Alabama that would help them be successful as people, as students and as players.”
That’s working for now, but Saban has been around long enough to read the writing on the wall. The head coach sees yet another change coming to college football and knows it won’t be long until he too has to adapt his ways.
“We love our evaluation process, but we’re going to have to tweak it if that’s the case,” Saban said. “That’s the direction everything’s moving in.”