West Virginia prepared for shift in early signing period

The recruiting calendar will shift this coming season with the early signing period opening the first week of December instead of being positioned in the middle of the month.

The new date for the 2025 class is set for Dec. 4-6 on the 2024 calendar, moved up from the Dec. 20-22 window that was in place for the 2024 cycle. That small window gives college coaches the chance to sign players in their recruiting class to letters of intent and effectively close the door on the recruiting process.

But what does that shift forward mean for college coaches?

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said that the adjustment won’t have a major impact for the Mountaineers in large part because of how the coaching staff has gone about constructing their recruiting classes in recent years.

And that is tied to the fact that the summer official visits have been the critical component to assembling classes with the bulk of players committing during that timeframe.

For example, out of the 22 commitments for West Virginia in the 2025 class, 13 came from those official visits during the month of June with only one of those pledges coming outside of that month.

That has been the formula that has been successfully utilized by the coaching staff is recent years and while it will limit the ability to bring late pieces on visits during the early part of December it shouldn’t change much to the general operation.

“So, it just kind of moves it up,” Brown said.

Now, where the real adjustment will be made is the fact that a dead period will now be in effect from Dec. 2-8 and Dec. 9-22 will represent a quiet period which means coaches can host recruits but can’t have any in-person contact away from campus.

That means that the focus will shift from the traditional recruiting of high school prospects to an emphasis on the transfer portal. That window will open Dec. 9 and stay that way until Jan. 7 to recruit transfer options.

“You’re going to be focused more on portal kind of things,” Brown said.