DI to consider early signing period in football
Change intended to improve football recruiting environment
October 5, 2016 4:21pmGreg Johnson
High school football prospects could experience greater transparency in the recruiting process if a new football recruiting model introduced by the Division I Council is adopted.
The heavily debated proposal focuses on four areas: camps and clinics; revising the recruiting calendar; regulating employment of individuals associated with prospects; and coaching limits.
The proposal would make accommodations for two, 72-hour early signing periods beginning on the last Wednesday in June and in mid-December. The December date is also the initial time junior college players can sign a National Letter of Intent.
Because the Division I Collegiate Commissioners Association provides governance oversight for the National Letter of Intent program, the Council will ask the commissioners’ association to adopt the changes to the signing periods for Division I football.
The Division I Football Oversight Committee, spearheaded by months of work by a football recruiting working group, recommended the proposal.
Currently, the only signing period for high school football prospects begins the first Wednesday in February. Coaches and administrators have discussed creating an early signing period for years, and the Football Oversight Committee studied the issue thoroughly. Ultimately, members believe they have developed a recruiting model that balances the interests of all involved.
“The working group did a deep dive on recruiting from beginning to end, and I think what we came up with as a proposal is both student-athlete-friendly and coach- and staff-friendly,” said Bob Bowlsby, chair of the Football Oversight Committee and commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. “We hit a sweet spot.”
The proposal would be effective for the 2017-18 signing year.
Additional assistant coach
Changes to the recruiting calendar to accommodate earlier National Letter of Intent signing periods are one of the four areas of focus in the proposed Division I football recruiting model. Increasing the limit on the number of assistant coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision from nine to 10 is another.
FBS programs can have a maximum of 85 players who receive grants-in-aid. Additionally, most programs have walk-on players. The Football Oversight Committee felt the addition of another coaching staff member will benefit football players.
“There was unanimity around the table on the addition of a 10th assistant coach being allowed (in FBS),” Bowlsby said. “We feel it is appropriate from a student-athlete welfare standpoint. The ratio of coaches to student-athlete is much higher in football than other sports, and this helps address that.”
The Football Oversight Committee also is aware of the growing size of the staff dedicated to football programs around the country. The committee plans to examine this issue during the upcoming year.
Council aims to improve access with football camps proposal
Legislation’s goal is to strengthen tie between scholastic environment, recruiting
October 5, 2016 4:24pmMichelle Brutlag Hosick
Division I football recruits could experience an improved recruiting environment if new legislation introduced by the Division I Council is adopted.
The measure is designed to improve the quality and access of recruits to Division I football coaches and make the football recruiting model more enforceable, fair and transparent.
Improved, regulated conversations between coaches and recruits would lead to better recruiting decisions and improved student satisfaction with college choice, members believe.
The proposals – one for the Football Bowl Subdivision and one for the Football Championship Subdivision – would require schools to choose not more than 10 days for conducting or participating in football camps and clinics. This is a modification in the number of days and the manner that football coaches can participate in camps and clinics. Currently, coaches can participate in camps and clinics during two periods of 15 consecutive days. In the new proposal, the 10 days would not have to be consecutive, providing greater flexibility to attend more events and visit with more students at various locations.
With a refinement in the purpose of the camps to one focused primarily on recruiting rather than instruction, which traditionally has been done in the scholastic environment, the camps must be owned, operated and conducted by NCAA member schools and occur on the school’s campus or in facilities the school primarily uses for practice or competition. Keeping camps and clinics at known facilities will better protect the health and safety of participating students, members said.
Only coaches permitted to recruit off-campus and graduate assistant coaches who have passed the current year’s recruiting exam would be allowed to participate in other schools’ camps and clinics.
The proposals also would allow all coaches participating in the camps or clinics to have recruiting conversations with participating prospective student-athletes during the event. These changes are intended to sustain the access prospective student-athletes have to coaches and also to improve the quality of that access, helping recruits make better decisions about what school to attend.
Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, chair of the Division I Football Oversight Committee, which proposed the legislation, said the recruiting subcommittee spent a lot of time working on a comprehensive package that included both camps and clinics and the overall calendar.
“We needed to limit the number of days (for camps and clinics) and do things differently than we did before,” Bowlsby said. “But the best chance for us to manage this is to acknowledge that the summer is about recruiting, not skill development, and to manage it in ways that reflect best on our universities and the process.”
The legislation will be considered in the 2016-17 cycle and would be effective immediately upon adoption. The Council will cast final votes in April.
The proposals would resolve an issue that has been percolating for some time. Historically, camps and clinics were used primarily to provide skill instruction. Under current NCAA rules, recruiting activities – other than recruiting conversations between the coaches from the school that owns and operates the camps and the prospects participating in the camp – are prohibited. The interactions that take place as part of the camp or clinic are not subject to the recruiting calendar.
Over time, camps and clinics increasingly have been used as a recruiting tool. The changes to camps and clinics legislation acknowledges this while emphasizing that the scholastic environment provides the opportunity to ensure compliance with the rules, better monitoring of recruiting activities, and a better experience for the prospective student-athlete.
Another factor that changed the way coaches use camps and clinics was a 2008 rule change prohibiting FBS coaches from evaluating prospective student-athletes during “live,” nonscholastic football activities. Many think the rule was intended to reduce third-party influence in recruiting, but others believe it increased the pressure on coaches to use camps as a place to find future talent. Some coaches broaden their recruiting reach by working at camps held by other schools.
The issue came to a head this spring when an Atlantic Coast Conference proposal to limit coaches to working at only their school’s camps and clinics and requiring those camps and clinics to be conducted on the school's campus or in facilities regularly used for the school’s practice or competition was adopted by the Council, only to be rescinded by the Board of Directors a few weeks later.
The board provided guiding principles to the Football Oversight Committee that led to the proposed changes to the recruiting rules, including making the rules more enforceable, keeping recruiting within the scholastic environment, and providing greater transparency to the prospective student-athlete about the recruiting process.
The camps and clinics proposal is part of a comprehensive review of the recruiting environment requested by the board when it rescinded the original legislation. The Council also recommended legislation changing the recruiting calendar in football. Those pieces also will be considered in the 2016-17 cycle and would be effective immediately upon adoption.
Change intended to improve football recruiting environment
October 5, 2016 4:21pmGreg Johnson
High school football prospects could experience greater transparency in the recruiting process if a new football recruiting model introduced by the Division I Council is adopted.
The heavily debated proposal focuses on four areas: camps and clinics; revising the recruiting calendar; regulating employment of individuals associated with prospects; and coaching limits.
The proposal would make accommodations for two, 72-hour early signing periods beginning on the last Wednesday in June and in mid-December. The December date is also the initial time junior college players can sign a National Letter of Intent.
Because the Division I Collegiate Commissioners Association provides governance oversight for the National Letter of Intent program, the Council will ask the commissioners’ association to adopt the changes to the signing periods for Division I football.
The Division I Football Oversight Committee, spearheaded by months of work by a football recruiting working group, recommended the proposal.
Currently, the only signing period for high school football prospects begins the first Wednesday in February. Coaches and administrators have discussed creating an early signing period for years, and the Football Oversight Committee studied the issue thoroughly. Ultimately, members believe they have developed a recruiting model that balances the interests of all involved.
“The working group did a deep dive on recruiting from beginning to end, and I think what we came up with as a proposal is both student-athlete-friendly and coach- and staff-friendly,” said Bob Bowlsby, chair of the Football Oversight Committee and commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. “We hit a sweet spot.”
The proposal would be effective for the 2017-18 signing year.
Additional assistant coach
Changes to the recruiting calendar to accommodate earlier National Letter of Intent signing periods are one of the four areas of focus in the proposed Division I football recruiting model. Increasing the limit on the number of assistant coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision from nine to 10 is another.
FBS programs can have a maximum of 85 players who receive grants-in-aid. Additionally, most programs have walk-on players. The Football Oversight Committee felt the addition of another coaching staff member will benefit football players.
“There was unanimity around the table on the addition of a 10th assistant coach being allowed (in FBS),” Bowlsby said. “We feel it is appropriate from a student-athlete welfare standpoint. The ratio of coaches to student-athlete is much higher in football than other sports, and this helps address that.”
The Football Oversight Committee also is aware of the growing size of the staff dedicated to football programs around the country. The committee plans to examine this issue during the upcoming year.
Council aims to improve access with football camps proposal
Legislation’s goal is to strengthen tie between scholastic environment, recruiting
October 5, 2016 4:24pmMichelle Brutlag Hosick
Division I football recruits could experience an improved recruiting environment if new legislation introduced by the Division I Council is adopted.
The measure is designed to improve the quality and access of recruits to Division I football coaches and make the football recruiting model more enforceable, fair and transparent.
Improved, regulated conversations between coaches and recruits would lead to better recruiting decisions and improved student satisfaction with college choice, members believe.
The proposals – one for the Football Bowl Subdivision and one for the Football Championship Subdivision – would require schools to choose not more than 10 days for conducting or participating in football camps and clinics. This is a modification in the number of days and the manner that football coaches can participate in camps and clinics. Currently, coaches can participate in camps and clinics during two periods of 15 consecutive days. In the new proposal, the 10 days would not have to be consecutive, providing greater flexibility to attend more events and visit with more students at various locations.
With a refinement in the purpose of the camps to one focused primarily on recruiting rather than instruction, which traditionally has been done in the scholastic environment, the camps must be owned, operated and conducted by NCAA member schools and occur on the school’s campus or in facilities the school primarily uses for practice or competition. Keeping camps and clinics at known facilities will better protect the health and safety of participating students, members said.
Only coaches permitted to recruit off-campus and graduate assistant coaches who have passed the current year’s recruiting exam would be allowed to participate in other schools’ camps and clinics.
The proposals also would allow all coaches participating in the camps or clinics to have recruiting conversations with participating prospective student-athletes during the event. These changes are intended to sustain the access prospective student-athletes have to coaches and also to improve the quality of that access, helping recruits make better decisions about what school to attend.
Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, chair of the Division I Football Oversight Committee, which proposed the legislation, said the recruiting subcommittee spent a lot of time working on a comprehensive package that included both camps and clinics and the overall calendar.
“We needed to limit the number of days (for camps and clinics) and do things differently than we did before,” Bowlsby said. “But the best chance for us to manage this is to acknowledge that the summer is about recruiting, not skill development, and to manage it in ways that reflect best on our universities and the process.”
The legislation will be considered in the 2016-17 cycle and would be effective immediately upon adoption. The Council will cast final votes in April.
The proposals would resolve an issue that has been percolating for some time. Historically, camps and clinics were used primarily to provide skill instruction. Under current NCAA rules, recruiting activities – other than recruiting conversations between the coaches from the school that owns and operates the camps and the prospects participating in the camp – are prohibited. The interactions that take place as part of the camp or clinic are not subject to the recruiting calendar.
Over time, camps and clinics increasingly have been used as a recruiting tool. The changes to camps and clinics legislation acknowledges this while emphasizing that the scholastic environment provides the opportunity to ensure compliance with the rules, better monitoring of recruiting activities, and a better experience for the prospective student-athlete.
Another factor that changed the way coaches use camps and clinics was a 2008 rule change prohibiting FBS coaches from evaluating prospective student-athletes during “live,” nonscholastic football activities. Many think the rule was intended to reduce third-party influence in recruiting, but others believe it increased the pressure on coaches to use camps as a place to find future talent. Some coaches broaden their recruiting reach by working at camps held by other schools.
The issue came to a head this spring when an Atlantic Coast Conference proposal to limit coaches to working at only their school’s camps and clinics and requiring those camps and clinics to be conducted on the school's campus or in facilities regularly used for the school’s practice or competition was adopted by the Council, only to be rescinded by the Board of Directors a few weeks later.
The board provided guiding principles to the Football Oversight Committee that led to the proposed changes to the recruiting rules, including making the rules more enforceable, keeping recruiting within the scholastic environment, and providing greater transparency to the prospective student-athlete about the recruiting process.
The camps and clinics proposal is part of a comprehensive review of the recruiting environment requested by the board when it rescinded the original legislation. The Council also recommended legislation changing the recruiting calendar in football. Those pieces also will be considered in the 2016-17 cycle and would be effective immediately upon adoption.
