An Ode To National Signing Day: Gone But Not Forgotten

If Wednesday, February 4, 2026, felt like just another day to you (and there's a good chance it did), then you're probably not a college football junkie.

But if you're a true sicko of the sport, then the first Wednesday in February felt like a hollow reminder of what used to be.

In years past, we used to have this thing called National Signing Day every year around this time, and it offered fans an entire season's worth of drama in one 12-hour period.

I wrote an entire article back in December about how wild signing day used to be, but now that's all we have left: memories.

To be fair, there is still a National Signing Day. This past cycle's designated signing day was the first week of December, right smack in the middle of teams competing for conference championships and jockeying for playoff positioning.

READ: Assessing The Winners And Losers Of Signing Day

It feels wrong that we no longer have a standalone National Signing Day after the season is over, because the first Wednesday in February used to be its own national championship.

Teams and fans alike used to hang on every whim of a 17-year-old recruit, and the fax machine, for only a brief moment, became as powerful as a nuclear button to a college football program.

I vividly remember sitting in my car one semester in college, watching a signing day press conference on my phone to see if Florida ended up signing a four-star wide receiver that would have put their signing class in the top 10.

I ended up being late, but we landed the receiver, so all's well that ends well.

It felt like entire dynasties were either formed or would crumble on a day like that, and whether that ended up being the case or not was irrelevant, because on National Signing Day, perception was reality.

There were always winners and losers, and if your team signed a top-10 class or flipped a top recruit from a rival program, the bragging rights were as legitimate as they would have been from an actual, on-field win.

Unfortunately, as with most things in college football nowadays, the ever-evolving nature of the sport has made February's signing day obsolete.

Between the transfer portal, NIL, and, most importantly, players almost exclusively enrolling early, National Signing Day has faded away like a cooling star.

The spectacle of signing day alone used to be so riveting that grown men would call out of work that day just to see the fireworks.

Now, it's just a relic from a bygone era.

Though we no longer have the electricity of National Signing Day, we will always cherish what we once had.

Hold on to the traditions that are near and dear to your heart, folks. Because you never know when you have just witnessed one for the last time.