This article originally appeared with The Red & Black on July 3, 2015 and can also be found here.

Verbal agreements in the business world don’t guarantee much. They are worth even less in college football recruiting.

College coaches can extend written offers to high school players from Aug. 1 until the first Wednesday in February, aside from a month-long dead period in mid-December. One of the most useful tactics for recruits is verbally committing, which means the player pledges to attend a school. The problem is these commitments are non-binding until pen hits paper on National Signing Day, which leads to chaos when players back out.

Bill Curry is one of many who would like to adjust the recruiting system. Curry spent 20 years as a head coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia State. He is a proponent of an early signing day in August as a means to remove drama in the lives of these young men.

“Half of [the early commits] will change their mind six times between now and the time they actually go to college,” Curry said. “You could get a lot of this out of the way before the last year of competition in high school so [a recruit] could have a somewhat normal life as a high school senior.”

Curry is familiar with the balance of coaching this year’s team while also recruiting the next. A fall signing day means the recruiting workload for coaching staffs would lessen a bit. Although many players would still wait until February’s date, it would allow coaches to get a sense of what they have and what they need to add in the next six months.

The Georgia Bulldogs are a great example of why an early signing day could help. With 12 verbal commitments at the start of July, head coach Mark Richt and his assistants have nearly half of their recruiting class. Even if a few players back off their commitments, signing early allows the coaches more time to concentrate on games or to prepare for next year’s recruiting cycle.

Recruits also have a lot to gain with signing ahead of schedule. If a player shines in a summer camp, earns a scholarship offer and signs his National Letter of Intent before the season, any negative outcomes of the season are ineffective. Whether it’s poor numbers or injuries, the recruit remains locked into his agreement with the institution. The agreement eliminates problems like withdrawn offers or grayshirting, which occurs when a player waits one semester before joining a school and is thereby a part of the following year’s class.

At the same time, there is also no obligation to sign early.While recruiters will push for prospects to make it official, it is in the recruit’s hands to sign or ride out the next few months. National Signing Day will still be treated as judgement day for all involved, but players could opt out of the day’s madness by ending speculation months in advance. Curry isn’t the only one with a coaching pedigree who wants this to be implemented. 

When rumors of a Dec. 16 signing period arrived earlier this year, Tennessee’s Butch Jones, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and University of South Carolina’s Steve Sarkisian were just a few of the coaches who voiced their approval. The proposed dates shift from August to four days after Thanksgiving to mid-December, but the basic idea continues to gain approval. As long as there’s a chance to sign before early February, there will be support. The voices from the sidelines will force the NCAA to make a decision. 

Although it’s commonplace to hope for the best and wait for the worst with this governing body, 247Sports.comwriter Jake Rowe thinks the NCAA will eventually come through.

“The NCAA has shown a propensity for change,” Rowe said. “They’ve allowed for things to change over the years. They can stand in the way if they want, but if you’ve got student-athletes and universities that make up the NCAA wanting to move in one direction, I think the NCAA would be foolish not to.”

Rowe thinks this might happen in the next few years, and there’s plenty of evidence supporting that schedule. 

The NCAA tabled discussion on the topic in mid-June after many of the Football Bowl Subdivision conference commissioners supported it, meaning the organization will likely explore its potential in the coming year.

Like with many of the coaches, the commissioners’ main concerns revolve around the date. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott argued against August, explaining that a summer signing period is harmful for schools which require a senior’s first-semester grades. 

The upcoming months will allow the NCAA’s oversight committee the chance to study the idea and make the decision to promptly move forward.

The addition of an early signing day would create change in college football, but it won’t be dramatic. 

Some recruits will take the new opportunity and run with it, but plenty will opt to go through the traditional process. Even with an alteration in these   college football rules, recruiting junkies will still have plenty to watch out for each National Signing Day.

“Let’s face it, recruiting is not built on the kids you get early,” Rowe said. “It’s fun to follow, but the intrigue and entertainment is as it gets closer to National Signing Day, it gets crazier. I think all in all, you’ll get a small number of kids who sign early and the ones who do will be the ones that had quiet recruitments.”