Change is always afoot in the college football landscape. From conference realignment to a new postseason setup, there’s shifting going on nearly every year. There are calls for another change to college football, with advocates hoping to create an early signing period in the recruiting process, an issue the SEC hasn’t yet taken a position on.

The proposed change would create a three-day signing period in mid-December, which is when junior college players can commit to FBS schools. As it stands now, that period would fall into what is now a “dead” period during recruiting, when schools can have no contact with high school players.

New SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was asked about the possible change in his visit to Texas A&M campus last week. While the SEC hasn’t taken a public position on the proposal as a conference, Sankey gave some insight on how he feels on the issue. From his comments, it doesn’t sound as if the conference will be in favor of moving up the signing date.

“When you change that date, you change that recruiting calendar and that’s where we need to exercise care,” Sankey said.

Sankey expressed concerns over what creating an early signing period would do to both high school prospects and team evaluations.

“The American Football Coaches Association worked to design a recruiting calendar that is workable that respects high school football in the fall, the playoff structure that’s in place, and that allows recruiting to be completed when you have seven of eight semesters of high school work complete so you can see where someone stands. It allows for senior year standardized testing to be completed so you have as much information as possible,” Sankey said.

Moving the signing date up would also put more pressure on high schoolers and would push up their recruiting decisions. With the slew of very public decommitments we see on a weekly basis during the recruiting periods, forcing players to make their binding decisions earlier could create issues. Moving

“I also know from early signing period in other sports there’s great pressure to sign everyone early,” Sankey said. “You’re creating the expectation that decisions will be made to foster December signing.”

Other than the whims of high school kids, there’s the issue of coaching changes happening after the proposed early signing period.

While many teams will make personnel changes right after the regular season ends, such as Texas A&M firing defensive coordinator Mark Snyder they day after its regular season finale, oftentimes coaches will make a move immediately after their team’s season is completely wrapped up, such as John Chavis leaving LSU to fill Snyder’s position at the end of December. With the ire that parents and high school coaches have shown toward coaches who leave after the current signing period, it’s likely there would be an increase in upset parties with an early signing period.

Sankey said the SEC will likely have its position on the issue firmed up after the conference’s spring meetings, held annually in late May. His comments last week indicated that there’s some disagreement within the conference on the matter. Last year, Nick Saban came out somewhat in favor of it, while Mark Richt erred against it a few months ago.

If Sankey has his way, it sounds like his first power move as the conference’s commissioner would be to come out against the introduction of an early signing period.