Bo Pelini: Slow recruiting process

Nebraska coach Bo Pelini has a solution to slow down the recruiting process: Eliminate national signing day altogether and put greater accountability behind scholarship offers.

Pelini thinks high school players should be able to sign with teams as soon as they receive scholarship offers. If coaches choose to offer scholarships to freshmen and sophomores -- an increasingly common tactic -- they have to be prepared for those players to sign on for the distant future.

"If somebody has offered a kid, let him sign, it's over," Pelini told ESPN.com on Wednesday. "That will stop some of the things that are happening -- people just throwing out offers, some of them with really no intention of taking a kid."

As national momentum builds for an early signing date, possibly in August or December, Pelini, like many coaches, would prefer to see the recruiting process slowed down. Maryland coach Randy Edsall wants to prevent scholarship offers from being given until the start of a prospect's senior year in high school.

Pelini's idea attaches more to the offer, whenever it comes.

"Make [the offer] mean something," Pelini said. "People will be like, 'Whoa, I've got to take this kid now.' It will slow things down for the kids, for the institutions. There will be less mistakes.

"Why does there have to be one specific day? And it will get rid of some of the stuff that goes on, kids pulling the hats and so forth."

Pelini added that prospects should be able to be released from their letters of intent if coaching changes occur.

The Huskers coach hasn't formally proposed the idea but has discussed it with other coaches, who also want recruiting to slow down along with more time to evaluate prospects before offering scholarships.

Pelini doesn't think his plan will happen because guidelines for when prospects can sign have been in place so long.

"Things would slow down dramatically," Pelini said. "Some of these kids get 60 offers. Some of these people don't even know who a kid is. The whole thing gets watered down. There's no way some [team] can take that many guys."