National Signing Day 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 Division II member of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA) in the United States. Although all

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

and II sports have at least one national signing day,

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

's signing days typically receive the most attention from sports media. Traditionally, college football's National Signing Day is the first Wednesday of February. As of 2017,

has an additional national signing day for early signees during the third week of December, meaning recruits have the opportunity to sign with their college team over a month before the regular signing period.

History

Until 1981, several college football conferences, including the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central United States, South Central and Southeastern United States. Its 16 members in ...

(SEC) and

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

(ACC), held conference signing days on the second Saturday in December to have recruits sign conference letters-of-intent. The College Football Association, led by several prominent college head football coaches, proposed a resolution to eliminate conference signing days during their 1980 convention, and have a singular signing day in their places, called a national signing day. In 1981, the last year for conference signing days, recruits had to sign both conference and national letters-of-intent if their school was in the Big Eight or

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference also included schools from Oklaho ...

s (four members of the latter conference later joined the former, which became known as the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida ...

after the expansion). The conference letters-of-intent restricted a recruit to signing with only one school in a conference, but was unrestricted to signing with a school outside of the conference. The national letters-of-intent restricted a recruit to signing with only one school in the NCAA. National signing day has typically been on the first Wednesday in February. In April 2017, the NCAA Division I Council voted to reinstate an early signing period in football, effective with the 2017–18 school year. The Collegiate Commissioners Association approved the new NCAA rule the following month, setting the early signing window for high schoolers as the first three days of the current early signing window for junior college players. On October 9, 2024, the NCAA Division I Council abolished the NLI program for that division, effective immediately. The NLI was replaced by written offers of athletic financial aid that provide most of the NLI's core functions. The abolition of the NLI in Division I was reportedly tied to the settlement of the '' House v. NCAA'' legal case, expected to lead to a revenue-sharing model across college sports.

References

External links

National Letter of Intent
{{American football in the United States, state=collapsed College football in the United States American football drafts High school football in the United States