Normal Signing Date Probably Doesn't Matter These Days

Days of colleges worrying about getting high schools players changing rapidly

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — There is something nobody really wants to talk about these days and that's a completely different opinion these days on getting high school players. The combination of NIL, ego, advisers and transfer portal has somehow given everybody hope.

You probably didn't expect to see that coming. Arkansas fans unwilling to accept the realities for the future probably don't want to admit things are changing rapidly. Right now, getting high school players and developing them to your system for a couple of years to win big don't exist much at the highest levels.

Wednesday's early signing date for college football used to be a huge deal. Newpaper deadlines were pushed back, TV anchors stayed up late and some radio stations stayed on the air half the night. Most people these days just shrug and go on about their business

Recruiting the transfer portal may be bigger now that getting unproven guys to skip their graduation and spring in high school learning how they'll sit on the bench at a college. The odds are so low for any coach that tries to do that with event super-talented players, most don't try it. Some who have weren't still around when they turned into stars. Why waste time with high school players?

Yeah, I didn't it that coming, either, a few years ago. With the NCAA giving up its last form of any sort of control except planning parties for some postseason tournaments, it's unrestricted free agency with no salary cap every single year.

Get a good player and congratulations, you may have developed him for somebody else. Oh, we'll hear some folks my age and above still clinging to the belief some players want to be Razorbacks and are coming with a loyalty and goal to win again. That's true, but the raw facts are there's not enough to win any championships. In football getting 6-6 every year is becoming the desire. There was a time a lot of us remember when the desire and goal for the Hogs was a championship.

What we're going to see now are schools signing top players out of high school and lose them a year or two later to someone else for NIL money. We have no idea who can pay and who can't. Nobody is playing with the same resources and that's a fact I have no idea how you can control. We have evidence now no court in the country is going to let anyone put controls on what a player can make until he goes professional and then collective bargaining takes over.

If there's a path to do that across all of college sports I'd love to hear it. There are several ways you CAN do it, but then lawyers get involved and the cases aren't even being appealed these days. Everybody just shrugs and quits paying lawyers more money over fighting a losing battle.

Who are going to be the best developmental schools? Until somebody wins a title, it's a good bet there will be developers sending players to those with pockets deep enough to play for a championship.

Which category the Hogs will land is still up for debate. We've got that annual arguing going on around Razorbacks' recruiting going on for a few more days. There's always people who claim to know somebody on the inside and others just guessing.

What usually happens when the dust settles is neither side ends up being totally accurate. Then we go back to arguing about the quarterback and if the offense throws enough passes or not. We'll have wild expectations and doomsday predictions, The more things change in college sports, the result is usually the same.

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