New Rival Coaches Steve Sarkisian & Mike Elko United Against New Recruiting Proposal

There are few things that Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies can agree about these days.

Especially now, with the Longhorns invading the SEC, where the Aggies have been attempting to establish their own identity for over a decade.

However, during the Texas High School Coaches Association Convention on Monday in San Antonio, it became clear that Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian and Aggies coach Mike Elko were united on one front – their opposition to moving up Early Signing Day.

The proposed rule, which would have moved up Early Signing Day from December to June – before the start of prospects’ senior seasons – was tabled by college commissioners in June, meaning at some point the discussions could theoretically resurface.

And when asked about the potentially ground breaking new policy, both coaches gave strong stances against it.

“I’m a little bit more hesitant maybe than others to have a signing date in the summer when you are not giving kids the chance to play their senior year of high school football,” Sarkisian said. “I think you learn a lot about players their senior year. We continue to evaluate the tape into the senior season… Development is so critical from ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade.”

Elko echoed Sarkisian Sentiments, but also brought up a separate point of opposition.

According to Elko, the implementation of such a rule could change high school football forever, and result in mass amounts of prospects reclassifying and leaving for college a year early.

Elko its staunchly against such an idea.

“I am 1,000% opposed to that,” Elko said. “If you add a summer signing date, I think you run the risk of creating more kids wanting to reclassify and skip their senior year of high school. If you look at what happened when we moved the signing date to December, now 80 percent of the kids enroll in the spring. If you project that out and move the signing date to June, I think over the course of three, four, five years, you are going to start having 50, 60, 70 percent of the kids reclassifying.”

Fortunately, the discussions about the proposed rule have no timetable to return, and it seems that the current calendar will remain in place for at least the next year of two.

And ccording to Sarkisian, that is what is best for the high school players themselves.

“I kind of like the calendar that we’re having this year, with that signing period in early December and then you get into the portal,” Sarkisian said. “I still think we’re protecting the high school player. Last year, the high school player was not protected, where the signing date was in the middle of December and the portal opened and some schools were dropping high school kids because they were taking the portal kid.”