The NCAA Division I council has extended the recruiting dead period for all NCAA Division I sports through April 15. This extends the existing dead period, announced in September, that extended through January 1.
“The COVID-19 numbers are not trending in the right direction for the Council to allow in-person recruiting and the associated long-distance travel for coaches, prospective student-athletes and their families,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Penn. “We acknowledge the impact the restrictions are having on student-athletes who dream of being Division I athletes, but we must prioritize the health and safety of current and potential student-athletes and their families, as well as coaches and others on campus.”
During the recruiting dead period, coaches are not allowed to have in-person contact with prospective student-athletes either on campus or off campus. Electronic communication with student-athletes, including video calls, are allowed to continue. Student-athletes are also allowed to take trips of their own to visit a campus, though they are not allowed to meet with coaches while there.
College teams are also allowed to participate in open events, such as last week’s U.S. Open Championships, that occur during a dead period even if that event includes prospective student-athletes, providing no recruiting activities occur, according to a 2008 NCAA interpretation.
In June, the CSCAA asked the NCAA to extend the recruiting dead period until December and to extend a moratorium to on-campus visits through March of 2021. The timing of that was to account for allowing coaches to recruit at Junior Nationals, which were still planned as a large scale event at the time, and then to not allow potentially-infected recruits on campus until after the end of the swimming and diving season. With Junior Nationals being now an ‘any meet counts’ scenario without a high concentration of prospective student-athletes in any one place, those calls have not been publicly renewed since.
Members also voted to permit additional flexibility in virtual recruiting in football by allowing all coaches, full-time school staff members and current students to conduct recruiting calls (telephone calls and video calls) without a countable coach being present. This flexibility, proposed by the Football Oversight Committee, includes volunteer coaches in the Football Championship Subdivision. The Council plans to address similar flexibility for other sports at its December meeting.
The dead period extension was supported by the oversight committees for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. Members acknowledged that while Divisions II and III had loosened recruiting restrictions, Division I schools are managing active fall sport seasons, which is not the case at most schools in Divisions II and III.
The new restrictions come as the US hits new record highs of coronavirus cases, averaging over 160,000 daily over the last week The number of deaths and hospitalizations are also climbing and are now approaching the highs seen early in the pandemic in April and May.
You can take your limitations a shove it NCAA. We don’t need your permission to take control of our lives.
Hunh, the college system is rigged for the wealthy. Who’d have thunk?
@HeadTimer By saying the some schools are ‘scrupulously’ observing the dead period, you’re implying that schools who don’t discourage swimmers from visiting campus aren’t being scrupulous. I totally disagree. Yes, it’s economically unfair just as the old system of permitting unlimited officials during freshman and sophomore year was unfair. But telling kids they can’t go check out a school is no more fair.
As for in person meetings with coaches, businesses have adapted and are now doing $10M deals over Zoom which they never thought they could do and those aren’t the most video and social media savvy folks, especially when compared to GenZ.
Nothing the Class of ‘22 is facing in the pool or school or socially… Read more »
We are not affluent, but we did drive to visit schools when Admissions opened for tours this summer. Hours on Zoom calls with current students, admissions, financial aid, and coaches was to narrow down to top choices for a visit. We also used our extensive swim network to speak with swimmers of the top 3 teams. Stepping on campus for the tour and speaking with academic department personnel was the differentiator, as well as texting and facetiming the coach while we were there so my swimmer could see the facilities as if they were part of the tour. Most kids are going to school for an education and what they will get outside of the pool. I’ve heard a lot… Read more »
This is beyond unfortunate for those of us who can’t afford to take unofficial visits before recruiting is over for our class. Personally, I’m very much torn between my top three, and I’m lucky that they’re very close to each other just in case. The NCAA should be giving us guidelines and restrictions, but not entirely messing up our ability to see schools we’re interested in. I can’t imagine having my spot taken by someone with like abilities just because they’re able to pay to visit a school and make a decision. I really wish that the NCAA actually asked for some input from the athletes that it’s affecting.
Simply requiring a negative test and social distancing throughout the official visit would be major help with making sure that swimmers don’t infect coaches and teams and vice versa. No one on the team I swim for has had covid yet because we know that it can close down practice for the whole team. While not all teams are like this, it should be taken into consideration.
I think what you’ve just pointed out is a big part of the problem. “Not all teams…”
The NCAA operates under the assumption, and IMO rightfully so, if you give college students and college coaches the opportunity to skirt rules or push boundaries, they will. So you go to Florida, where there are fewer restrictions, and the top QB recruit in the nation has a great time going to the clubs and parties and everything else. You think Jim Harbaugh is just going to sit back and say “well we can sit 10 feet apart outside and have a chat and you can walk around campus, but no parties, no bars, no fun”?
It’s too bad that they’re not coming up with solutions by sport, but I’m sure that that would cause similar problems with rule-skirting.
Again, per Braden’s prior reporting on this subject back when the dead periods were first being imposed, the college coaches are big proponents of this extending the dead periods. I agree it makes life difficult for HS kids (I have a ’21 kid who had to choose his school based on pretty limited exposure to campuses and coaches/team), but if the college coaches are pushing it, the NCAA isn’t likely to force anything on them.
Of course, one would have to detach from reality a bit to believe that Jim Harbaugh has a chance to recruit the top HS QB in the nation, but I’ll play along for the sake of argument. 😉
Michigan is not good right now, but it’s still Michigan, and Jim Harbaugh is still a great recruiter.
I mean, Andrei Minakov still chose Stanford, because even when Stanford was struggling, they were still Stanford.
I don’t know if it’s on your list, but just go to Indiana University. It’s a great school in an awesome town and you’ll get a lot faster under the guidance of our GOAT Head Coach, Ray Looze. We even have a football team that I guarantee will win the 2020 Big Ten Championships and make the college football playoffs!
Can the reason for the early commitments be as much (or more) attributable to the fact that, without needing to coordinate on-campus visits, you simply crunch the timeline? In other words, last fall, the top kids in the ’21 class would have likely wanted to take their visits at their top choices before making a decision. That requires planning and scheduling and extra time. Fast forward to this fall and all of that planning and scheduling and time has been eliminated due to the dead period.
Kids ARE committing without actually visiting campus. How do you think international kids have been making decisions for years?
What data are you basing this on?
International swimmers are the exception, obviously, but your implication was that swimmers who commit based solely on virtual interaction are the exception. Do you have any basis for this?
A number of teams seem to be pushing for earlier commitments, with or without physical campus visits. Your claim of affluent families “gaming the system” is a baseless sour-grapes argument. I say that as a non-affluent parent of a recruited swimmer who just had a scheduled official visit changed to a virtual format, and who has a teammate who has already committed to a D1 program based purely on virtual interaction with the team & coaches.
Sorry, but that doesn’t support your assertion that these kids are committing after having visited campuses and hanging out with team members. All you can take from citing the fact that 23 of the top 100 U.S. males have already committed is that …. 23 of the top 100 have committed. What’s your basis for the assertion that they have all paid their way to visit campuses on their own?
In the interest of sharing information, I can say that the overwhelming majority of 2022 commits have made their own visits to campuses so far. I can’t with certainty say every single one, but I can say that it is ‘just about all of them.’
That being said, I support the idea that swimmers can commit without seeing a campus. I chose a college without visiting campus (even though I probably should have visits, as it was only about 90 minutes from home). It’s not nearly as much fun, and I’m confident that it’s disappointing, but I don’t see why it should be a deal-breaker.
Thanks, Braden, though I presume your data points are based on surveys of commits?
Also, by SwimSwam’s tally, how much further ahead are commitments this year versus last?
Commits, coaches…I’ve asked around and haven’t been able to identify an American 2022 who committed without visiting campus yet.
The best data point we have is when we got the first 100. The first 100 2022s were committed by October 30 this year, first 100 2021s were committed by November 27 last year.
I know of one personally, but I’m told it’s a “soft” commitment. I’m also told that the college team in question has only one spot remaining for the class entering Fall ’22 (excluding that swimmer), and they are still actively engaging with my child for what is presumably that final spot. Maybe the coaching staff is exaggerating the situation in order to try to “close” recruits.
Braden, have you asked anyone how many in-person visits those commits made, or whether they already had their minds pretty much made up when they visited? I certainly understand them wanting to visit their top choice in person before making the final commitment, but that is a lot different than rich families “gaming the… Read more »
Maybe just teach your kid to control the controllables, instead of whining that the families with more money are “gaming the process.”
Sad for all the recruits who have to make a choice without meeting the coaching staff, team or campus
My advice… Network with other swimmers and parents, have your coach talk to other coaches that have gone where you’re looking, and for God’s sake, STAY THE HELL OUT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA!
The only point I think I will agree with Guerra on is to NETWORK! Sad for the swimmers who have club coaches that don’t allow questions or meeting other swimmers from the LSC and meets. My swimmer has a huge network of swimmers, coaches and officials they had the opportunity to interact with over the course of the past 12 years. Unfortunately I know coaches that do not allow this to occur, and I think the dead period is hampering their enjoyment of the sport and recruiting process.
Definitely a loss of experience, but:
1) Depending on the school, they might still be able to do campus tours, just not meet with the staff in person.
2) They can definitely still meet with the coaching staff, just not in person. Is there something lost with Zoom meetings, phone calls, etc? Yes, but they are not making the decision completely blind. Bigger question is: Will the coaches still be there when they get there? Bigger yet: Will the program still be there?
3) If they are 2022 recruits making a decision any time soon (next 8-9 months), the team currently on campus will look vastly different than the team they are joining in Fall of 2022. Two… Read more »
Coach, you’re a smart and reasonable person and your swimmers are lucky to have you. Your post is excellent!
Great points Coach! My swimmer has electronic communication with the commits and is definitely getting a feel for the personalities, as these will be their lifelong friends.
My daughter and I are currently out west visiting schools. She is texting the coaches as we walk around each campus. No optimal but making the best of it.
Word to the wise and my public service announcement for all recruits… stay away from Arizona State and the University of Arizona! And I mean DANGER…DO NOT TOUCH!
Nope. I like Tucson