When the NCAA laid out new football rules this past year allowing for a tenth assistant coach and an early signing period in December, they also implemented the allowance of official visits in the spring, and this April will be the first that those official visits are able to be utilized.
Previously, official visits — which are paid for by the schools — could only occur after September 1 of a prospect’s senior year. Now, that timing has moved up by a half year. Prospects are still limited to just five official visits, but there is some concern among the coaches about the timing.
With the earliest that a prospect can sign being late December, an official visit in April can be long forgotten by the time a player finally puts his pen to paper.
“We’re probably going to try to minimize official visits for people that aren’t going to decide for a while,” Urban Meyer said earlier this month. “But I’m hearing a lot of kids are going to decide by the summer. So I think the committees have been put together to study all this, I think this is an unintended evolution of what’s happening. And I don’t believe when they said let’s have early signing everybody is going to be signing by June. I’m concerned that might happen. I’m not a big fan of that. As is, high school coaches aren’t a big fan of that either. So this dynamic is ever-changing.”
Ohio State will host some official visits this spring, but only because those players are intending to decide this summer. That won’t lock them in, but it’s better than being left out completely.
Not everybody is interested in hosting spring official visits, however.
“We probably won’t do any, to be honest with you,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney told reporters this month. “I don’t think we’ll do any official visits this spring. My big thing is, I’m not into the entertainment deal. If guys can’t get here unofficially, they’re probably not coming for four years.
“My thing is, I want to get to know guys. So, we probably won’t do any officials. We’ll have a lot of unofficials, like we always have. We’re not going to change anything here at Clemson. We’re going to continue to operate the way we have, and if that means we lose out on some guys in the spring, then there will be plenty of guys left in the fall.”
Unofficial visits have to be paid for by recruits, and they can take as many as they can afford. It’s a nice arrangement for schools who are centrally-located to plenty of talent.
Don’t expect Clemson to stick to a hard line on this rule, however, because college football programs are constantly doing whatever they can to ensure recruiting success. This is the same program that put a slide in its football facilities, so putting a foot down about official visits seems like a standard that won’t stand for long.
Recruiting becomes more and more complicated and intricate every year, and the spring officials have only added to the confusion.
“The recruiter has to be a very sharp guy and understand what we’re dealing with, because bringing a guy on a beautiful fall afternoon here as opposed to bringing them in in January, those are things you think about too,” Meyer said. “But that’s a little bit overrated as well. We have had some of our best players on cold weekends. And so the recruiter’s got to know what he’s doing.”
