Winter Signing Day Moving to Early December Among CFB Changes in 2024
Another change is coming to the college football offseason.
Winter signing day is moving up on the calendar. The December event will come earlier in the month and occur before the transfer portal opens.
The report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel also noted that the decision on having three signing days has been pushed back until the CCA has an in-person meeting in June. Still, the decision to have December’s signing day come earlier was approved on Wednesday.
This change will have plenty of effects, but the main impact could be on transfer portal decisions. With the winter signing day moved ahead of the portal’s opening, potential transfers will have a better grasp of their options going into the offseason.
Considering Oklahoma State’s portal exodus in 2022, it can also be a way for teams to rebuild their roster through the portal with their commits already signed.
Although verbal commits had already been a way for those players to make decisions, last-minute flips or decommits leading up to signing day might have led players to make decisions they would not have otherwise made. With signing day moved up, those transfers will know exactly who will come in at their position and which freshmen they might have to compete against for playing time.
Thamel reported on a couple of other proposed changes from the NCAA Football Oversight Committee Meeting last week. One of those was that transfers will be able to sign National Letters of Intent beginning in December of 2024.
As Thamel noted, colleges have pushed for this, and it will make portal commits more official than they had previously been. Another potential change is a way to combat players faking injuries.
Nothing is official, but the football rules committee discussed forcing injured players to sit out the remainder of that possession if the clock is stopped, with players allowed back in if a timeout is called.
College football will change drastically over the next few years, but changes like this can help OSU and the rest of the sport adapt to an ever-changing landscape.
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