Nick Saban has made his feelings known about the early signing day in the past, but on Friday he couldn’t help further express his displeasure. The early signing day means players can sign with schools on Dec. 20, which is right smack dab in the middle of bowl game preparation.
In a classic Saban rant, he absolutely reamed the process. He believes it puts undue pressure on coaches to recruit fast and players to make a mad dash to sign with schools.
“I don’t think it’s in the players’ best interest,” Saban said, per Michael Casagrande of AL.com. “I don’t see how it benefits anybody. I think it’s really stressful for everyone. We’re all trying to get ready for bowl games and playoff games and we have a signing day right in the middle of when we’re going to be practicing for a playoff game. It was very stressful for a lot of coaches to get out and see as many guys as they could in December and accelerate everything. You don’t have very much time to do that. If you’re playing in a championship game, you have even less time to do it.”
Saban and his recruiting department have more time than most programs between the end of the regular season and their bowl game. Alabama doesn’t play until Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl against Clemson. They have a week’s worth of time more than most coaches who also are preparing for bowl games.
With that in mind, Saban acknowledged he might not be the best person to share this message but did say he hasn’t “talked to a coach that’s happy with it.”
“Now, maybe they wouldn’t say what I just said,” he added. “Maybe they wouldn’t say that, and they’d probably disagree with it just because I said it.”
Saban also elaborated on why he doesn’t think it’s fair to players who might be pressured into signing with a school when other opportunities simply haven’t presented themselves just yet.
“I see more players getting pressured by some schools to sign early so that they don’t get an opportunity from maybe a bigger school later, which I don’t think is in the player’s best interest,” Saban said. “Because a guy may have an opportunity to go to a place that he’s always wanted to go to, or an SEC school, and he’s getting pressured by somebody else to sign early.”
Truly, despite what you may or may not like about Saban, what he says here makes too much sense. The young men who are being chased have a ton of pressure on them to make the right choice, and it only seems right to give them time after the craziness of bowl season is over to make those types of choices. That way everyone can take a bit more time to make sure kids are landing in the right spots.
Even if, in the end, Saban and the Crimson Tide will end up with the best players every year, anyway.