NCAA extends recruiting dead period, now over a year in length, due to COVID

quote:

---

It’s been nearly a year since recruits were able to take on-campus visits. Now, they’ll have to wait even longer to take visits with the NCAA extending the recruiting dead period once again.

The NCAA has announced that the dead period has been extended through May 31 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That puts the current dead period at well over one year in length. "During a dead period a college coach may not have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents, and may not watch student-athletes compete or visit their high schools," the NCAA website states. "Coaches may write and telephone student-athletes or their parents during a dead period."

Back in November, the NCAA announced that the dead period had been extended through mid-April. Now, the organization has tacked at least one more month onto the in-person visit pause.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered recruiting in a major way over the last year. After cementing the highest-ranked class in history, Nick Saban explained how it altered the 2021 signing class and will alter the 2022 recruiting cycle.

"We always go through a process of trying to get guys here that fit what we want from a criteria standpoint at each position, whether it’s size, speed, character, all those things,” Saban said. “Early on last year, sometimes we go through a process. Sometimes we want to complete that process. Even though we’re in on a lot of good players, it took a little more time. We were waiting to go out and see spring practice, in some cases, when this all happened last March.

"Then when we didn’t have the opportunity to do that, we just moved forward on the guys that we knew the most about. We knew quite a bit about lots of players last year. This year is going to be a different challenge because we don’t know as much about the players coming up next year."

It seems like a possibility that coaching staffs will continue to integrate Zoom meetings with prospects into their recruiting arsenals even after the pandemic has passed, but there's no way to effectively replace in-person evaluations.

"Everyone has become efficient at Zoom," Florida coach Dan Mullen said. "I'm great talking to the kids and all that. The coaches leaving campus, maybe you don't even go on the road recruiting anymore in the future. You can do it on Zoom. You can talk and have these conversations.

"But it's hard for me in a Zoom presentation to show what standing in the middle of The Swamp is like. You're down here in Florida, November, December, January, February, it's palm trees. The actual beauty of our campus. You don't get that in a Zoom call. I wonder, in the future, do they even let the coaches ever out on the road again?"

---