On Wednesday the NCAA released the lengthy, three part piece in which it highlighted the necessary steps required before collegiate sports can resume. They also added a few additional guidelines to the current, unprecedented rules against in-person recruiting.
The committee also granted waivers of recruiting rules effective May 11 to make them more flexible during the dead period the group imposed, which currently lasts through May 31. For example, any school staff member may participate on recruiting calls between a countable coach and a recruit. In normal circumstances, only coaches, and a few others in limited situations, may communicate with uncommitted prospective student-athletes via telephone or video calls.
The committee also lifted the restriction on the number of uncommitted prospective student-athletes (and their family members) who may participate in a recruiting call with a countable coach.
Additionally, current student-athletes may now participate in recruiting calls with coaches, as long as that time counts against the eight hours of countable athletics related activity that the committee permitted in all sports earlier this spring.
Finally, committed prospective student-athletes may participate in virtual team activities after completion of all academic requirements for high school graduation or transfer to a Division I school. Uncommitted prospects could on one occasion observe such activities but not participate.
It feels like the NCAA is much like you and me, learning more about Zoom meetings in the last six weeks than we had probably in all of our years previous, combined.
This new sets of rules does however pull back the curtain on some of the ways coaching staffs are evolving their recruiting efforts right now with group Zoom meetings full of recruits or potential targets getting to experience what a team meeting is like, even if it’s only done over the internet.
I don’t find myself as interested in all the NCAA rules with cyber-recruiting as much as I’m curious how this changes recruiting in the years to come. Will campus visits turn into less of a thing?
That’s hard to imagine but if you can visit with a ton more schools and teams virtually, it’d certainly give that 16 year old a chance to open their eyes to something you may not have considered otherwise.