Kirby Smart addresses potential changes to signing day in college football

As college football looks to rework its calendar, one of the many proposals that has gathered steam is the addition of a new signing day, potentially even as early as the summer months before football season begins.

It has met with mixed reviews from college coaches and analysts alike, with a handful of potential drawbacks.

“As far as the mid-summer possible signing day, look, there’s positives and negatives to everything,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “We can sit here and debate it. Y’all guys put ’em all over the Internet. There’s high school coaches that say, ‘Well they won’t play their senior year.’ If a kid doesn’t play his senior year because he’s signed, I don’t really want him on my team.”

Smart’s in a unique position in that he captains one of the most in-demand programs in the sport. Recruits are lining up to flock to Georgia, which gives Smart considerable negotiating power.

If he wants a recruit not to sit out, that recruit almost certainly isn’t going to sit out.

So Smart isn’t all that worried about that potential concern when it comes to an early signing period in the summer months.

“If he’s going to opt out for his senior year then you’ll do the same to me. So I don’t really know if that’s a viable option,” Smart said. “A lot of high school coaches think well at least I’ll get my kids signed because players are losing opportunities ad nauseam by signing in December and not having spaces because of the portal. I don’t like the idea of someone signing before their senior year because I think the senior year matters.”

As things currently stand, the transfer portal opens up before the early signing day in December. That has caused some programs to take transfers in lieu of potential high school signees, a valid enough concern for high school coaches.

Moving the first signing day to early December has been one proposal.

The summer months might be a little extreme, particularly if it leads to high school players opting out of their senior year once their spots are secured. Smart, for one, thinks the evaluation of senior year tape is a major factor in the recruiting process. But he’ll adjust either way.

“I think in the state of Georgia and in the Southeastern Conference footprint, the high school season of your senior year still matters,” Smart said. “I want to watch a kid play. You know any NFL teams that want guys to skip their fourth year and not evaluate them or skip their third year that they would be draft eligible and not evaluate them?

“I prefer to have them play and grow. I think it’s good for the game. So I’m kind of indifferent and if that goes that way we’ll adjust to it the best we can.”