Recruiting Cycle – National signing day is still technically in February each year, but the majority of top high school players are signing with teams in December now a days on what is known as the “Early Signing Period.”
This allows players to participate in bowl practices and to get a hopeful leg up on the competition heading into the following season which is the first they are eligible to see the field.
This has become such a trend that most high school seniors now sign during the early signing period in fear of being behind their fellow freshman signees if they arrive on campus in the summer a few weeks before fall camp.