There is no one that loves the challenge of recruiting more than Lincoln Riley.
It has almost become a game that Riley intends on winning. Oklahoma puts an emphasis as strong on recruiting as the Sooners do winning football games.
The coronavirus pandemic brought a new mandated recruiting dead period through April 15. That means no face-to-face contact for recruits and college coaches, but still means that coaches and recruits can communicate whether it is by a phone call, text message or message on social media.
It’s new and something Riley addressed during a conference call with the Oklahoma media on Tuesday.
“We’re not doing anything different than what we usually do, just the amount of time that you have to invest in that right now is certainly different,” he told the media. “The biggest difference is just not having (the recruits) on campus right now. That’s the part you miss the most, especially for us. We’ve had a lot of great visitors through the years that have come out and spent time with us at spring practice. Obviously, the spring game has become a big, big deal for us from a recruiting standpoint. We had probably as many top prospects as we’ve ever had – probably more that were lined up this spring, whether it was unofficially for a practice or officially for the spring game.
“You hate to miss that, especially for the guys who haven’t been here yet. That part definitely feels different. But it has been fun to spend some time and connect with a lot of these guys and their families. A lot of these guys are on a pretty open schedule, too. Your whole day is in front of the computer. Whether it’s our staff meetings, whether it’s meetings with our players, whether it’s film study, whether it’s recruiting, Every waking hour is in front of a screen. That’s just the new normal.”
With most of the country shut down through late April, early May, the recruiting calendar could even have a more drastic change.
During the current NCAA mandated dead period, recruits were allowed to visit schools going through spring practice. On April 15, Football Bowl Subdivision programs were allowed to begin the evaluation period with two in-person contact possibilities at a recruits school. Recruits in the 2021 class were also allowed to start officially visiting schools after April 15, specifically geared towards spring games and other official visit weekends until June 21.
Riley says it’s too early to talk about the evaluation period set to begin on April 15.
“I think the next realistic time that most people are going to be looking at is going to be the summer periods,” he said.”Whether or not you have camps. Whether or not you are able to have prospects on your campus. I think that’s going to be the next realistic possibility. And then I think if we are able to do that or not able to do that, I think what we do the rest of the summer will probably hinge on how that plays out.”
He discussed further on the possibilities that could take place when the summer recruiting period starts on June 1.
“Hypothetically, if you are able to open up June 1 and start having guys on campus and all that, then I doubt they change much,” Riley said. “If you are not able to do that, then there’s going to be a lot of things that are going to have to be looked at. They are definitely going to have to take a peek at the early signing period.
“Evaluations, you can open up the times, but are players and schools even going to be available for evaluations? Which I think is going to be a good question mark. If we are playing ball in the fall, then you could potentially see them giving us more opportunities to go out and evaluate during the fall. Because right now it is a very, very limited number. You could see that potentially open up and allow coaches try to make up for some of the lost time that they are going to lose with spring recruiting. Yeah, I think it’s just a step-by-step process and I think once we get an idea of what we think June and July may look like from a recruiting standpoint, and specifically a visit standpoint, then I think the next steps will fall into place.”
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