Much has been made about how the "college football calendar" puts coaches in difficult positions -- most famously how Lane Kiffin had to leave playoff-bound Ole Miss so he could start recruiting for his new school, LSU.
Indeed, there was no time to waste. The early signing period for high school recruits begins Wednesday. It's why, within hours of landing in Baton Rouge, Kiffin welcomed local five-star athlete Lamar Brown and his family to his office. (Brown said he will sign with the Tigers.)
The actual season isn't done yet, though. Conference championship games are this weekend. The College Football Playoff runs from Dec.19 to Jan. 19. Meanwhile, the sport's lone transfer portal window will be open from Jan. 2 to 15.
It's an unquestioned mess (we'll get to one of the culprits later), akin to the NFL running the Super Bowl, the draft and free agency all at once.
Yet for all the current complaining, the people most affected aren't the millionaire college coaches.
It's the high school recruits and their families.
Due to the early signing period, each coaching change -- both the firings and the hirings -- means that all members of recruiting classes (often 20 to 25 kids) have to readjust and decide (often in just a few days or even hours) whether to stick with their previous decision or try to flip to a new school.
And that's if the new coach even wants them.
"This whole process is not a process; it's chaotic," said Justin Cessante, coach of Michigan state champion Detroit Catholic Central High School, which expects to have five FBS signees this year. "And it has hurt the high school athlete the most."
Information is scarce. Judgments are rushed. All but the most coveted of talents face a time crunch, pressured to sign or be left behind.
Consider the case of three of Catholic Central's top seniors, all of whom spent years going through the recruiting process with their families before committing in June.
Offensive lineman Benjamin Eziuka was headed to Penn State, at least until coach James Franklin was fired midseason. The Nittany Lions haven't hired a replacement, which clearly complicates going there. Instead, Cessante said, Eziuka will follow Franklin to Virginia Tech, which hadn't been under consideration until it hired Franklin just over two weeks ago.
Tight end Jack Janda was going to Wisconsin, but speculation about the future of Badgers coach Luke Fickell caused Janda to reconsider to avoid having to scramble. Fickell, it turns out, will be back next season, but Janda is now expected to sign with Iowa.
Then there's wide receiver Samson Gash, who was committed to Michigan State until the Spartans fired coach Jonathan Smith on Sunday. The school quickly hired Pat Fitzgerald, but with less than 48 hours until signing day, Gash reopened his recruitment.
"Those three guys chose before the season and then all three have had to make decisions late because of coaching changes and because of rumors," Cessante said.
Lost in the flurry of confusion is "just the experience of it, the relationship-building, the learning who you want to be around and where you want to be the next four or five years," Cessante said. "That should be the positive part."
It's also the best way to make the best possible choice.
"Having less time to make the biggest decision of your life is not a good thing," Cessante said.
The chief issue is the early signing period.
Until 2017, players signed letters of intent in February, long after coaches had settled into their new jobs.
Then college coaches lobbied for the creation of an "early" signing period in late December (usually beginning on the 20th), so they could lock down players and encourage early enrollment. Coaches prefer kids who graduate high school early and spend the spring semester at college getting a jump on training.
Starting last year, however, again at the urging of college coaches, the "early" period was moved even earlier, to the first Wednesday of December, right in the middle of the playoff chase and the firing/hiring cycle.
Coaches want certainty for themselves. As for the high school kids, not so much.
Many will sign Wednesday despite not knowing who their head coach will be, let alone their position coaches who often switch jobs in December and January. Others might speak to the new guy once. On the flip side, incoming staff have limited time (if any) to determine whether a recruit even fits their system.
Even worse, every school will hit the transfer market in early January and effectively recruit over the incoming freshmen by bringing in more experienced players.
That assures many well-intentioned recruits will wind up in less-than-ideal situations -- dealing with a depth chart they couldn't envision for coaches they don't know at campuses they might never have had time to visit.
That is a recipe for additional transfers the following year, which causes some of the roster churn that the college coaches constantly denounce.
By moving the signing period back to February, the solution to the "calendar" would be to end, or at least discourage, early enrollment for high school recruits. Picking a school after the coaching carousel and transfer portal are done would allow both the high schoolers and the coaches recruiting them to have the most information possible.
"We should have a standard expectation of what things will look like," Cessante said. "And right now, there is no standard."
This is the calendar that the coaches demanded but now decry because it inconveniences their job-hopping.
Yet unlike them, high school kids don't have multimillion-dollar buyouts to fall back on.