By Keith Taylor
Special to NKyTribune
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops isn’t ready to make a judgement call on college football’s early signing date approved by the Collegiate Commissioners Association last week.
In addition to the regular signing date on the first Wednesday of each February, players also will be able to sign with the school of their choice during a 72-hour window from Dec. 20-22. The date coincides with the junior college signing period for four-year colleges, which runs from Dec. 20-Jan. 15.
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops says it will take time for college coaches to get adjusted to the new signing period, a 72-hour window from Dec. 20-22 (Keith Taylor Photo)
“I think like anything, there’ll be some good and some bad in anything new,” Stoops said during the Southeastern Conference spring teleconference Monday. “We’ll take some time to make an educated decision on that. Right now we’ll play with the cards that were dealt to us. I think, like I said, there’s good and bad. If you look through the years it certainly could have benefitted us in certain ways. I think it’s good, as far as having the early signing period, having that ability.”
Stoops added he wasn’t in favor of “changing the calendar and all those things when you package it together” as some preliminary proposals included a June signing date for incoming high school seniors.
“A player that we have committed that I know very well that we’ve had a relationship with for a year, year and a half or so, if you want to clean that up and get him signed in December I see no harm in that,” he said. “With the change and bringing in the visits so early and all that, that’s something that’s going to take some thought and we’ll work our way through that.”
Stoops plans to use the new rule to secure prospects who have already committed before the traditional signing date in February.
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“If we feel very comfortable with the player and we have a good feel for them personally, for their character and their families and we can get it knocked out, I definitely think we would use it to try and get them locked up,” Stoops said.
The Kentucky coach says he’s not sure which programs would benefit from the early signing date, but added it will be an adjustment for each coach in the Southeastern Conference and within college football in general.
“I think each school you’d have to look at that independently,” he said. “I think there are time where it maybe would have benefitted us, but you never know. We’ll see how it goes in the future.”
Also under consideration is a rule that would allow players to compete in at least four games without losing a redshirt, a possible change that Stoops favors.
“I think that rule change would make a lot of sense,” he said. “We were in that situation last year when we had a quarterback hurt early in the year in Drew Barker and played most of the year with our backup quarterback being a redshirt guy. We decided to keep that redshirt on Gunnar Hoak in game 11 and played our third-team quarterback who did some good things, but anyway, it was a situation where it could’ve benefitted us a year ago.
“I think it makes a lot of sense. It can protect the player and their redshirt year, help gain a little bit of experience for the following year and overall I think it’s a very good rule.”
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter
