Division I coaches hoping to be able to get some in-person face time with recruits will have to keep waiting after the NCAA decided on Wednesday to extend the current emergency recruiting dead period until June 30. The NCAA's Division I Council Coordination Committee made the decision to extend the dead period, which was put into place shortly after college sports came to a halt back in March amid the spread of the COVID-19 disease.
The pandemic forced the NCAA to cancel sports for the rest of the season and with campuses across the country shutting down it meant the end of in-person recruiting for the time being. Originally, the NCAA had announced an ending date of April 15 before extending the dead period to May 31.
The NCAA said it would reevaluate the decision on May 13 to determine whether or not the halt on recruiting would need to continue. Now that it has decided that will be the case and in-person recruiting will remain on hold until the end of next month, the Division I Council Coordination Committee will again meet in two weeks to determine if another extension will be necessary.
The decision on Wednesday means that the entire official visit period for college football prospects, which had been set to run from April through the end of June before the current health crisis, will be lost this year giving recruits a shorter amount of time to take official visits before making a decision if they plan to sign in December during the early signing period.
June is also the primary month for on-campus and satellite camps for college programs across the country and it is a time when a great deal of recruiting gets done by Arizona's staff. Whether it means UA's coaches spending time in California, Texas or other nearby states, camp season presents the staff with an opportunity to work closely with recruits leading to offers and in some cases commitments.
On the basketball side it means the loss of the June live evaluation period, which was put into place last summer and provided college coaches with an opportunity to see recruits both in a camp setting at the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Virginia and at regional high school events across the country.
One of the biggest events has been set to take place in Glendale at State Farm Stadium from June 18-21 as the Section 7 Team Camp has been preparing to host more than 400 college coaches and nearly 200 high school teams from across the region for the tournament. At this point it is unclear whether or not that event, which is hosted by the Arizona Basketball Coaches Association, will still take place despite coaches now not being able to attend.
Tuesday the National Association of Basketball Coaches and Women's Basketball Coaches Association recommended to the NCAA that the dead period be extended until July 31. That could still take place, but for now the NCAA decided not to take such a drastic step.
Still a significant amount of recruiting time in all sports has been lost and will be lost after the decision to once again extend the recruiting dead period.
Although coaches will continue to be prohibited from taking recruiting trips off campus or hosting prospects for visits on campus, the dead period does not bring recruiting to a a halt completely. The NCAA has relaxed some of its usual recruiting rules to help aid coaches this spring and keep the process moving forward for prospects in the 2021 class and beyond.
Earlier this week the NCAA made the move to allow unlimited calls to 2021 prospects by removing some of the limitations it had in place previously that forced coaches to be more selective about their communication with recruits.
If the NCAA ultimately decides to extend the dead period until July 31 it will mean the loss of the entire offseason live evaluation periods for basketball coaches putting an unprecedented burden on coaches looking to add recruits for the 2021-22 season plus recruits looking for their next home after leaving high school.
