Non-Division I Coaches Talk About Implications of Coming Recruiting Changes
On Wednesday of this week, significant changes to the recruiting rules for NCAA Division I schools will begin. While there is no direct impact on NCAA Division II & III programs nor NAIA or 2-Year Colleges, there will undoubtedly be…
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Continue ReadingOn Wednesday of this week, significant changes to the recruiting rules for NCAA Division I schools will begin. While there is no direct impact on NCAA Division II & III programs nor NAIA or 2-Year Colleges, there will undoubtedly be ripple effects that do impact those schools.
Here is a breakdown of what most coaches say are the most significant changes.
Athletes can now take official college visits beginning Sept. 1 of their junior year. An official visit is when the host school pays the athlete’s expenses for the trip. Prior, athletes couldn’t take official visits until their senior year – after a vast majority of Division I players were committed.
This is significant because, in the past, official visits were generally used to bring committed athletes to the school as a collective group for bonding and getting to know the team. Now, athletes can make those visits as juniors, which might lead to many sophomores waiting an extra year to commit until after they’ve gotten their official visits in. An athlete can only make five official visits while the school can have as many athletes make official visits as it would like. This is not a change, but it will become much more significant now that the official visits will become a larger part of the recruiting process.
Unofficial visits by athletes can not include interaction with the athletic department until Sept. 1 of their junior year. Unofficial visits – in which the athletes pays all their own expenses, can still take place at any age, but the big change is that it cannot include meeting with coaches and athletic departments. The only thing athletes can do on unofficial visits now, before Sept. 1 of their junior year, is a standard campus tour and academic meetings just like a non-athletic prospect to the school.
There can be no recruitment talk between coaches and athletes at a camp or clinic until Sept. 1 of their junior year. This is another drastic change, meaning that if an uber-talented freshman or sophomore attends a camp at School X, the coach from School X can not have recruiting discussion with that athlete. Camps and clinics have always been where significant recruiting conversations happened.
To reinforce the point – these changes are only at the NCAA Division I level. These changes don’t impact Division II. Also, NCAA Division III, NAIA and 2-Year Colleges have pretty much no rules governing how their recruit and those schools are not directly impacted.
“In general, I believe the changes are mostly positive, but will only slightly change the recruiting process for most volleyball programs,” Division II coach Rick Squiers of Nebraska-Kearney said. “Nothing about the new legislation will significantly reduce early recruiting. It may be done differently, but will remain an issue.”
Squiers also noted that athletes being able to go on official visits earlier is a good thing.
“The earlier official visits should help student athletes make better decisions. A welcome and needed change in the current climate,” he said.
Mary Young, the long-time coach at 2-year college powerhouse Central Community College in Columbus said she fully expects to see an impact at all levels because of the changes.
I know some coaches have said it doesn’t impact NAIA, 2-years, etc., but I do think there will be impacts at that level as well,” she said. “Giving young people more time to develop athletically, socially, and academically is really in the best interest of the student and in the long run, I believe it will be a benefit to college programs.
“At the two-year college level we see a huge level of growth in all dimensions of the student-athlete: athletically, academically, socially, etc. Think of the changes that occur from age 14-16. The person is naturally more mature and has more life experiences to draw upon to lay all the cards on the table to make a better decision.”
Concordia University’s Ben Boldt has coaching experience at all levels and thinks it will have a deep impact.
“From the NAIA perspective these changes could help us get a little advantage because we can communicate with the players before the NCAA teams can,” Boldt said. “From the NCAA perspective we’ll see how it goes. I have always thought that bringing the official visit date to the prospect’s junior year would get them to wait a little bit before committing (at least for some of the top prospect student athletes). If that is true, then the domino effect will also be later. However, I think that if a prospect wants to go on an unofficial visit on their own dime, they should be able to do that. The timing of having both those events start on September 1 of their junior year doesn’t really flow with the natural timing of recruiting. I think this is a start to the process and there will be more changes in the future.”
Bellevue University coach Trish Siedlik said it won’t change how she recruits athletes and she applauded the attempt to let kids slow down on the decision-making process.
“As an NAIA coach this will have no effect on the way that I recruit. However, I am glad that this will slow the recruiting process down just a bit. I think that it is a very tough position that the NCAA coaches have had to be put into,” she said. “The age of commitment has been getting younger and younger just to keep up with the competition. As a freshman or even sophomore I thought to myself “my goodness! I am not sure I was even thinking about recruiting back in 1993! I was thinking about prom, maybe even if I could get a day off from my job at Baker’s so I could go see a movie on the weekend!” I think limiting the time with those coaches to just the last two years in HS will maybe see a decrease in transfers. This allows those coaches to spend more time with their own players as well.
“Enjoy your youth ladies! Before you know it, your college career will be over and off you go to your “big girl” jobs. This is a big win for college coaches. I tell recruits and their parents that this is a four or five year financial decision. What they decide for college can affect how they start their lives after college. We were asking 14, 15, some 16 year olds to make those big decisions.”
Rick Pruett has a unique perspective as the head coach at Colleges of St. Mary’s and also as a club director.
“It seems they are trying to eliminate the the really young kids from committing that early and the NCAA schools from going after them that early. I think changing the kids’ official visit to their junior year instead of senior year is good for the players as it gives them more time to really make a good overall decision,” he said. “None of these rules really effect the player contacting the coach. It really just puts more restrictions on the coach talking to these players earlier than their junior year.”
Hastings College coach Matt Buttermore said he thinks it’s great that athletes can take official visits during their junior year, which might help make the recruiting process more affordable for families.
“I do think it is a good thing that schools can pay for junior visits, especially for kids with limited means that may not be recruited by the top 25 Division I programs or so – which is the vast majority of student athletes,” he said.