DESTIN, Fla. -- If an early signing period works for college basketball, shouldn't a similar idea be beneficial for college football?

Most of the SEC coaches don't think so. On Wednesday at the league business meetings, they voted 9-3 to not support or sponsor any national legislation for establishing an early signing period. As it stands, signing day is in early February.

The only football coaches who voted for the proposal and liked the idea of an early signing period were LSU's Les Miles, Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson and Kentucky's Rich Brooks.

The rest of the coaches felt that an early signing period, maybe in early December when schools can sign junior college transfers, would affect their concentration on the season at hand.

"You want to coach your team during the season," Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom said. "It's about the game day and the players you have on your team. Even though now you still have prospects taking mostly unofficial visits on home game weekends, the focus is not on recruiting. It wouldn't be that way with an early signing period."

Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who voted against the proposal, saw both sides of the issue.

"The last two or three weeks, maybe more than that, you have a lot of babysitting going on of prospects you have committed," Fulmer said. "You have to be there (to see a prospect) because you think another coach might be.

"I think the recruiting process had speeded up more and more in recent years. Penn State, Texas and some of those guys started having 15, 20 commitments before the season. It just started perpetuating itself.

"An earlier signing day would make it easier on families who don't want to go through a long recruiting process. To some degree, it would make it easier on the coaches. It would reduce the cost of recruiting a kid when he's already made a commitment.

"But by the same token, I think you'd neglect your team and game preparation if you had an early signing day."

Brooks said he doesn't understand why there wasn't more support for an early signing period.

"The early signing period has worked well for basketball, so I don't see why it wouldn't work well for football, especially with the number of early commitments we're getting in football," Brooks said. "An early signing period is a win-win situation for the prospect who has committed, and it's a win for the coaches wanting to save money in recruiting."

Georgia coach Mark Richt countered that an early signing period would fast-forward the calendar to a point where nobody would get a break from the recruiting treadmill.

"If they had an early signing period, they'd be pushing for earlier official visits," Richt said. "I'm just wondering when high school prospects and coaches are going to have a little down time. If we have an early signing period, does that mean you have official visits all summer?"

Miles wanted the early signing period because he believes most recruits know where they want to sign early.

"Set up two weekends in the summer for official visits," Miles said. "Besides that, recruits now go unofficially to your games in the season, so they know where they want to go. They've been on your campus five or six times. So set the early signing date for Dec. 1."

Johnson said he understood the opposition to an early signing period, saying there's a lot of high school athletes who don't get a qualifying test score until later in their senior year.

Yet he also believes an early signing date would remove the drama of summertime commitments having to wait six months to sign.

"If some guys know where they want to go, then they can sign early," Johnson said. "If they don't know, they can wait until February.

"I think Sept. 1 would be a good date for the early signing period. You mail a prospect a scholarship offer. If you mail that offer and the guy signs, then he really wants to sign. Let them enjoy their senior season and we can concentrate during the season on the unsigned guys."

The NCAA has tried in recent years to lessen the pressure of the recruiting process for high school prospects. One of the most recent moves is no longer allowing college recruiters to send text messages, something that many prospects found an expensive nuisance.

Johnson claimed he did an informal survey with other coaches, and all agreed they were behind the ban of text messaging.

On the other hand, Florida coach Urban Meyer said he doesn't like the ban on text messaging and sees it as a reason why there shouldn't be an early signing period.

"I'm not comfortable signing kids you don't know," Meyer said. "I don't want to speed up the recruiting process. I don't like making mistakes in recruiting. Those mistakes can devastate your program.

"The way to minimize mistakes is getting to know someone. They should come to my (summer camp). I should meet their family. They should meet my family. I don't understand banning text messaging at all. That's the norm for communicating with kids these days."