Why South Carolina, Clemson aren’t inking any recruits today on National Signing Day
Shane Beamer sat on a couch inside his office, on the Monday before signing day, looking calmer than ever.
Are the Gamecocks planning to sign anyone on Wednesday — the official National Signing Day?
The South Carolina coach shook his head.
“Uh uh,” Beamer said. “Every year will be different. Who knows what next season will be like, but it is crazy that it’s a February signing day. We just had a staff meeting and I had to ask, ‘Signing Day is Wednesday, right?’ ”
Once a premier date on the college football calendar, the traditional National Signing Day — the first Wednesday in February — has become obsolete, taken over by the December early signing period and the transfer portal.
Since the early signing date was introduced in 2017, the February signing period has been dying out. More prospects, many of whom have been committed for months, are eager to finish the recruiting process. A large chunk, too, are using the early signing period to ink their National Letter of Intent (NLI) in December and enroll at college in January.
It is TV pushing out radio — what was once thought of as a massive shift has become the norm.
An example: Among the top 100 recruits on 247Sports Composite rankings, only four didn’t sign their paperwork in December.
Over the past three years, South Carolina has only signed two players in February — both in 2023: Rock Hill wide receiver Elijah Caldwell and five-star receiver Nyck Harbor, arguably Beamer’s biggest recruiting victory.
“Not a single one (this year),” Beamer said. “You usually anticipate one or two guys but for whatever reason — and it’s a testament to the kids we signed. … They were all basically committed to use before the season. They never wavered. There wasn’t really anybody we had to hang on to at the end. They’re awesome.”
All quiet at Clemson, too
Over in Upstate South Carolina, things were equally quiet Wednesday for the Clemson football team. Dabo Swinney’s program brought in the No. 11 recruiting class nationally for 2024, and all 22 of its scholarship players signed their letters of intent in December.
It was a continuation of a years-long trend for the Tigers. Over the past five recruiting cycles, Clemson has signed 110 scholarship recruits, and 102 of them (or 92%) signed early.
The only exception? In the 2022 cycle, Clemson signed eight recruits in February — and that came after the program’s most turbulent offseason in years, as offensive coordinator Tony Elliott and defensive coordinator Brent Venables left after the season for head coaching jobs.
Elliott’s move to Virginia and Venables’ to Oklahoma prompted a handful of decommitments and set Clemson’s recruiting calendar back a bit to the point where the February signing period was a welcome addition. Still, over 50% of the recruits in that class (12 of 20) signed early.
The last time Clemson signed a scholarship recruit in the early period was five years ago, when the team picked up commitments from in-state running back Michel Dukes and offensive lineman Mason Trotter right before national signing day.
Other than that, the hay’s been in the barn every December, to borrow one of Swinney’s annual recruiting quips.
Clemson, like most schools, hasn’t had any issues convincing top players to sign early: The team’s had a top 15 class, as ranked by at least one of the major services, every cycle since 2011. Over half the class routinely enrolls early nowadays, too (for 2024, 15 of Clemson’s 22 recruits joined the team in January).
The program even opted against doing its annual “signing day show” this year. Held on campus in the team football facilities, it was a popular in-house broadcast that streamed free online and included interviews with assistant coaches on the players they’d recruited, as well as a breakdown of each player from Swinney and a lengthy address from him to boosters.
The lack of a 2024 show doesn’t mean the broadcast won’t return, a team spokesman told The State. But consider it another sign of the times as the early signing period becomes a way of life for Clemson — and February action for the incoming class becomes an irregularity.
Beamer wants to keep February signing day
There are two words that will send every college football coach into an emphatic rant: the calendar.
The structured dates in college football don’t seem to suit anyone. College players can enter the transfer portal in early December, but high school players can’t sign until late December. Meanwhile, the portal is open for nearly the entire month of December, meaning schools have to host transfers while simultaneously hosting prep recruits, preparing for a bowl and sometimes welcoming a new coach.
And that’s before even getting to the February signing day.
Swinney’s suggestion: Move the early signing period up. Way up.
“I wish they’d let them sign August 1 of their senior year and let them sign any time they want,” Swinney told reporters last year. “Man, if I’m a high school kid or a high school coach, I’d fight for it to stay where it is or be earlier, honestly.”
Beamer agrees that the early signing period should be moved up, but he’s not advocating for it to jump four months in the calendar. He’s simply suggesting a reversal, where high school kids sign before the transfer portal opens.
“What I would be in favor of, and there are other coaches in this league who feel the same way,” Beamer said, “you still have the transfer portal, you still have the high school recruiting time period but they’re just separate. They’re not going on at the same time.”
Beamer continued, ready to air his grievances about specifically shortening the December transfer portal window from four weeks down to two.
“You don’t need over four weeks to decide if you’re gonna transfer or not,” he said. “I don’t need to be having conversations on Christmas Day about a kid thinking about transferring out of this program. That’s throughout the whole month of December.”
If a guy wants to transfer from South Carolina, Beamer argues, odds are that guy has a good inkling he wants to transfer the second the Clemson game goes final. What’s the point of that guy sitting on the thought for a month with “people in his ear, tampering with him telling him where he wants to go,” Beamer said.
Yet, when it comes to the February National Signing Day — something Beamer has used sparingly over the past three seasons — he wouldn’t change a thing.
It acts as a safety net. If the early signing period was moved up, as he and Swinney hope, perhaps there are kids not yet ready to make a decision. Maybe they need to go on another visit or want to see if a certain coach gets fired.
Those kids should have February.
“Sign in February! That’s great,” Beamer said. “Nyck Harbor signed in February. No issues at all.”
The State’s Chapel Fowler contributed reporting.
This story was originally published February 7, 2024 at 6:30 AM.
