NCAA’s big changes to recruiting rules, calendar start June 1

The NCAA is making some significant changes to how colleges are allowed to recruit high school athletes.

The NCAA is making significant changes to how colleges recruit high school athletes.

One of the significant changes is a move to 33 “evaluation days” from September to November for most student-athletes and service academy athletes getting 42 days. Designated staff members can only conduct off-campus visits to these prospects.

Another big item is a lift on restricting the number of calls school staffers can make to prospects during designated contact periods. However, schools are limited to eight off-campus, in-person contacts for Junior and Senior years and no more than one a week. There will also be no contact permitted before January 1 of an athlete’s Junior year.

The NCAA had this to say in a release, H/T Football Scoop.

“The football comprehensive recruiting model would modify the FBS and FCS recruiting calendars; adjust the first date to send recruiting materials, electronic correspondence and telephone calls; permit in-person off-campus contacts with high school juniors; reduce off-campus recruiting activities; and, in the Football Championship Subdivision, modify on-campus evaluations.”

These changes are set to go into effect on June 1. You can find a comprehensive list of the new rules here.

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NCAA Board of Directors adopts student-athlete protections due to coronavirus

The NCAA announced a series of protections for its student-athletes as well as a plan to host scaled back fall championships in the spring. 

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors announced on Friday a series of protections for its student-athlete participants as well as a plan to host scaled back fall championships in the spring in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In regards to the latter, acting board chair Denise Trauth, president of Texas State, offered the following in an official statement on Twitter.

“We want to provide opportunities for student-athletes wherever possible. We understand it will be complicated and different, and we’re not certain how it will look, but we believe it’s important to try to give students that championship experience.”

Under the “Eligibility” section, the NCAA statement provided this insight.

All fall sport student-athletes will receive both an additional year of eligibility and an additional year in which to complete it.

Student-athletes who do not enroll full-time during the 2020 fall term have flexibility in the progress-towards-degree requirements that must be met for eligibility in future terms.

Included in the official press release are the Council-recommended protections for college athletes, which are provided in the bullet points below.

  • Schools are prohibited from requiring student-athletes to waive legal rights regarding COVID-19 as a condition of athletics participation.
  • Schools are prohibited from canceling or reducing athletics scholarships if a college athlete in any sport opts not to participate due to COVID-19.
  • Student-athletes who do not enroll full time during the 2020 fall term have flexibility in the progress-toward-degree requirements that must be met for eligibility in future terms.
  • The financial aid of fall sport senior student-athletes who take advantage of the additional year of eligibility and extended clock will not count against team limits in 2021-22.
  • Schools are required to:
    • Review current insurance coverage for all student-athletes who are competing this fall.
    • Inform student-athletes about the risk classification of their sport as outlined in the Resocialization of Collegiate Sport document.
    • Inform student-athletes how the mandates in the Resocialization of Collegiate Sport document are being met at their campus.

The announced changes are effective immediately.

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What makes an athlete and what makes a student?

Good question.

What makes a student and what makes an athlete? This conversation is deeply important to me. I get very passionate about it.

College sports are egregiously out of control, with salaries no state employee, no matter how good s/he is at a job, has any business having. You’re not going to convince me, no matter how hard you try, that a college football coach needs to be making $5-7 million a year to win ballgames. I personally think we’ve gone so far away from the amateur model that it’s hard to ever see a way back from where we are right now. That said, I also firmly believe in protecting student-athletes and making sure they have the same rights as everyone else in school.

Universities have long been using the student-athlete classification to avoid paying money to these workers. Let’s be clear: That’s what they are these days. Maybe at one point athletics took a backseat to academia, but that’s no longer the case right now. The sport has evolved and people are expected to not just put time in on the field, but in the weight room and study room as well. That’s not even counting the school work they must complete to remain eligible. There is so much going on in the sport of college football, never mind the amount of games students are responsible for in the modern era. 

While universities are sending students home due to massive COVID-19 outbreaks, they’re keeping football players on campus. Some states are even classifying football players as “essential.”

I cannot think of one way in which football is essential, but then I’m not the one making these decisions. If I were, they would be very different. At some point, lawyers are going to be able to take all of these transgressions by the NCAA and they’ll use them to convince a judge that not only is football not essential, but these athletes are being treated closer to workers than to students. 

It’s a complicated topic, no doubt. There are many ins and outs to the discussion and it’s not fair to athletes that they’re constantly told what they are, instead of having any ability to define it by themselves. While we are starting to see more agency from the players, the NCAA and its member institutions still hold all the cards for now. There will come a time when this must be sorted out and the courts are likely to be involved. Right now, however, one would be forgiven if one was unable to make heads or tails of what constitutes a student and what constitutes an essential worker.

SEC football players share concerns about playing amid COVID-19 pandemic, per report

Most SEC programs have been able to avoid widespread outbreaks of the coronavirus within their facilities; others have been less fortunate.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Josh Vitale of the Montgomery Advisor with USA TODAY Sports. 

After the Southeastern Conference decided last week to move forward with a 10-game, conference-only football schedule during the coronavirus pandemic, we didn’t hear much from players.

That changed Saturday, though not by the conference’s doing.

The Washington Post obtained audio of a conference call conducted Wednesday among SEC administrators including Commissioner Greg Sankey, medical advisers and members of the SEC Football Student-Athlete Leadership Council, during which the players expressed concerns about the upcoming season as COVID-19 cases continue to spike throughout the country.

So far, most SEC programs have been able to avoid widespread outbreaks of the novel coronavirus within their facilities. Programs in other areas of the country haven’t been as lucky — Michigan State and Rutgers recently decided to isolate their entire rosters after multiple positive tests.

The question Ole Miss linebacker MoMo Sanogo posed, according to The Post, was what happens when thousands of students return to campus for the fall semester? Sanogo said he has four classes per week, and if those classmates go to bars and parties, he could be at risk of being infected even if he doesn’t, even with smaller class sizes and required face masks.

One of the officials on the call told the 21-year-old “as un-fun as it sounds, the best thing that you can do is just try to encourage others to act more responsibly and not put yourself in those kinds of situations. I’m very comfortable with what we’ve done on campus. I’m concerned about what happens from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m.”

“There are going to be outbreaks,” another official said, according to The Post. “We’re going to have positive cases on every single team in the SEC. That’s a given. And we can’t prevent it.”

The SEC responded to The Post’s story with a statement Saturday:

“The SEC hosts videoconferences with the SEC Football Student-Athlete Leadership Council to engage in candid conversation, share information and develop greater understanding of issues important to our student-athletes. The calls are intended to be confidential …

“The information we gather while engaging with student-athletes helps inform Conference decisions and provides an opportunity to share information with our campus leaders to further enhance our continuing support of the student-athlete experience. The student-athletes on the call expressed appreciation for the honest dialogue, indicated the discussion was beneficial and requested a similar videoconference in the future.

“As we all work to adapt to the realities of COVID-19, we will continue to support the health of SEC student-athletes.”

Another player on the call, who did not identify himself, asked officials whether they knew what lasting health effects players might experience if they contract the virus.

“The problem is a lot of this we don’t know,” Ole Miss sports medicine physician Marshall Crowther said. He added that some people don’t have long-term complications, but acknowledged that there are growing concerns about how the virus affects people’s hearts.

“You guys have answered a lot of questions the best way that you guys could, and we really appreciate it. But as much as you guys don’t know … it’s just kind of not good enough,” Texas A&M linebacker Keeath Magee II said, per The Post.

“We want to play. We want to see football. We want to return to normal as much as possible. But it’s just that with all this uncertainty, all this stuff that’s still circulating in the air, y’all know it kind of leaves some of us still scratching my head. … I feel like the college campus is the one thing that you can’t control.”

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NCAA upholds postseason ban for Mizzou football

The Tigers (5-6, 2-5 SEC) still have a chance to finish with an even .500 record this fall, but the team won’t be playing for a bowl game the day after Thanksgiving after the NCAA Tuesday upheld its postseason ban for the program.

The Tigers (5-6, 2-5 SEC) still have a chance to finish with an even .500 record this fall, but the team won’t be playing for a bowl game the day after Thanksgiving after the NCAA Tuesday upheld its postseason ban for the program.