The USC Trojans just hired a new defensive coorinator, D’Anton Lynn. In a normal world and a logical world, Lynn would be able to spend a week firing and hiring defensive assistants to create his new coaching staff.
This is not a normal, logical world.
Lynn has had to immediately hit the ground recruiting while also making sales pitches to defensive prospects in the transfer portal. Player acquisition is the overriding concern for USC and every other program at the moment. Why? Because the transfer portal officially opened on Monday, and because the early signing period is near.
Hiring and firing coaches can wait.
Does anyone else find this ludicrous?
It is long past time for college football to clear the calendar in December. The early signing period needs to be abolished or, at the very least, pushed back to mid-January, one week after the national championship game.
The transfer portal should be similarly adjusted.
Everyone in the college football industry should be able to agree that December should be solely a time for coaching changes. USC should be able to round out its defensive staff before Christmas and not be rushed. Every other school making a coaching change should be able to organize its staff in December. Then every bowl game is played. Then the season ends in early January. Then all of the newly-assembled coaching staffs can pursue recruits and portal prospects.
The fact that these changes haven’t already been made is striking. We will see if anyone in college sports is willing to make these changes for 2024.
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