when do college football recruits have to sign by
the first Wednesday of February
title: National Signing Day text: National Signing Day National Signing Day, usually the first Wednesday of February, has traditionally been the first day that a high school senior can sign a binding National Letter of Intent for a collegiate sport with a school that is a member of the United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Although all NCAA sports have at least one National Signing Day, and most have two, College Football’s is by far the most widely followed by fans and sports media. As of 2017, college football also has an early signing period in late December, meaning recruits now have the opportunity title: National Signing Day text: to sign with their college team over a month before National Signing Day. While many recruits utilize this early process, a significant number of the nation’s top-rated recruits opt to wait until February to sign with their teams, either because they have not yet made a decision or desire to announce their decision to the fanfare and media coverage typically reserved for National Signing Day. National Signing Day is usually on the first Wednesday in February. Until 1981, several college football conferences, including the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), held conference signing days on the second Saturday title: College recruiting text: met; previously, the annual limit on "counters" had been 30. In Division II, schools are limited to an amount equal to 36 full scholarships. The football recruiting season typically begins the summer after the previous year's class has signed — though the building of relationships between college coaches and high school players and their coaches may have been going on for months or years before that. Each summer, high school players attend various football camps at nearby college campuses to be evaluated on measures of athleticism, such as the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, agility shuttle; and the number of repetitions title: College recruiting text: Day, the day all high school players who will graduate that year can sign letters of intent (LI) to play for the college of their choice. Signing Day always falls on the first Wednesday of February. Other players, who may not have as many offers to choose from, more often verbally commit earlier in the process. Players occasionally decide to sign with a different school from which they gave a verbal commitment, which often leads to rancor between the fans and coaching staffs of the two schools. Junior college players, however, can sign scholarships in late-December, once their sophomore seasons title: College recruiting text: College recruiting In college athletics in the United States, recruiting is the process in which college coaches add prospective student athletes to their roster each off-season. This process typically culminates in a coach extending an athletic scholarship offer to a player who is about to be a junior in high school or higher. There are instances, mostly at lower division universities, where no athletic scholarship can be awarded and where the player pays for tuition, housing, and textbook costs out of pocket or from financial aid. During this recruiting process, schools must comply with rules that define who may be