The long-awaited quest (by some) for an early singing day could take one giant leap forward this September.
According to Brian Davis of the Austin American-Statesman, the Collegiate Commissioners Association - which runs the National Letter of Intent program - has formed a committee to explore the possibility of adopting an early signing day for football. The committee hopes to meet in Chicago this September, with the possibility of presenting legislations at the NCAA's annual convention in Washington, D.C.
At this point, though, it isn't clear whether official legislation would need to be passed to administer an early signing day, since the NCAA has no control over how the NLI program is run. And that should pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the inner workings of college sports. The NCAA does not control the program whereby it official intakes its athletes, all the while the athletes are signing a document they totally do not need to sign to play college sports.
The program is said to be made up primarily of FBS athletics directors - Texas Tech's Kirby Hocutt, Stanford's Bernard Muir, Georgia's Greg McGarity, and UTEP's Bob Stull - as well as Nicholls State's Rob Bernardi to represent FCS, and South Atlantic Conference commissioner Patrick Birtz to represent Division II. Mid-American Conference commissioner Dr. Jon Steinbrecher will reportedly chair the committee.
There is no official agenda that the committee will reportedly discuss other than "exploring all things associated with an early signing date." Considering the myriad of suggestions and side effects to those suggestions each possible early signing date entails, this committee has its work cut out for it.