December is quickly becoming far and away the most frenetic time during the college football calendar.
Even before the proliferation of the transfer portal, which saw a large swath of players leave programs shortly following the end of the regular season this year, there was a lot going on at this time.
Since the early signing period’s advent, December has gradually become the primary signing period for high school recruits. Pair that with scouting transfers and, in LSU’s case in 2022, preparing for an SEC Championship Game, and it’s a lot to put on the shoulders of coaches.
[autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] was one of several ESPN’s Tom VanHaaren spoke to for a piece last week on the future of the transfer portal windows, and Kelly elaborated on just how breakneck the pace was for the staff in December.
“The real key here was, how can we build in during the month of December an opportunity to try to do all three of those things without them overlapping?” Kelly said.
Kelly went on to explain that SEC coaches met in mid-February to discuss what can be done. One potential solution that seemed to be popular was to hold off on the transfer portal opening until several days after the early signing period.
This would have the twofold effect of allowing coaches to focus on one and then the other while also having a better idea of which positions need addressing in the portal after bringing in a signing class. Of course, the potential downside is that coaches also don’t know which of their own players are planning to depart via the portal.
“We don’t want to move the signing date back any further because then you have visits and coaches working in July, so that was a nonstarter,” Kelly said. “We would stay with a December date, then maybe a couple of days later, that’s the transfer portal [window], and you get to work on that. So you put one behind you, then you get the next one in front of you and now you can manage those two things.”
Exactly how the transfer portal will ultimately balance out with high school recruiting as well as other factors like the bowl schedule and coaching carousel remains a bit of a mystery, but it’s clear that in the minds of many coaches — Kelly included — the current format isn’t sustainable.
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