Recruits signed their letters of intent with Virginia Tech on Wednesday. It’s been a tough few weeks for everybody, but I imagine that it was more difficult for recruits than anybody else. Imagine being ready to sign for your school, and then wham, you don’t know who your head coach is going to be.

It’s worse for anybody planning to enroll in January. Take quarterback Alex Orji for example. He was committed to Virginia Tech for a long time, and he’s more familiar with that school than any other. At the same time, he has no idea who his Virginia Tech quarterback coach is going to be when he enrolls in January. He’s less familiar with the latecomer to his recruitment – Michigan – but he knows and has met their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. (And it helps that they are a playoff team, of course).

So he went to Michigan. Same for Ramon Brown, who ended up at Maryland. He doesn’t know who his running backs coach is going to be at Tech, so he signed with a school whose staff he does know.

I don’t like the early Signing Day and what it does to things. It has forced schools to start firing coaches in the middle of the season to try and get a jump on the early Signing Day, and the coaching carousel starts really early as a result. Everybody’s head is spinning, and recruits are left playing a game of musical chairs, hoping they’ll have a good seat when the music stops. It speeds up the decision-making process for 17-year olds, and that’s not a good thing. I think there should be one Signing Day, in the middle of February, and that way all recruits have plenty of time to make their decisions with more complete knowledge.

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