NCAA Votes to Continue Ban on Division I In-Person Recruiting Thru May 31
It was announced today, that the NCAA's Division I Council is officially extending the recruiting dead period for all Division I sports through May 31. This means that if May 31 is indeed the final date, it would have been 15 months since prospective student athletes were able to visit campuses.
M. Grace Calhoun, a chair member of the council said in a statement, “After carfeul consideration of all available information, the Council agreed that an extension of the dead period through May 31 was necessary. However, there is a strong commitment to use the next several weeks to outline the transition plan back to recruiting activites post June 1st, and to provide those plans to prospective student-athletes, their families, and the NCAA membership no later then April 15th.”
While this affects all sports, the attention will naturally be brought to football at most universities.
For Oklahoma State, this is no different as football recruiting is much more prominent on a daily basis than any other sport in Stillwater.
The on-campus recruiting ban has caused the Oklahoma State staff to turn completely virtual the past year, and they have done very well with it.
Facetime calls, Zoom calls and social media tactics have become the top priority of how to build relationships with recruits. Virtual visits have also become a hot topic with recruits when speaking about their recruitment from the Oklahoma State staff. Recruits have given me details of these calls with 15 or more coaches, which tells us this is their virtual version of laying out a red carpet for a recruit. Mike Gundy and recruiting director Todd Bradford and the rest of the analysts have fully bought in to the virtual recruiting and it will make their recruiting tactics for the future even stronger.
I have also been told things such as live facility tours, coaches going over film with recruits in real time, and coaches showing recruits lockers that have their own jerseys in them. These tactics have been a big hit with recruits, which has led to a very fast start in recruiting the class of 2022.
There are also plenty of recruits who are adamant on waiting to make a commitment before visiting schools or meeting coaches in person, which makes building relationships in a virtual manner even more important. Schools will want recruits to visit their school first when the ban is lifted in hopes of locking them down as soon as possible.
As of now, it appears June 1 will be the first time we see recruits on campuses and expect for Oklahoma State to make it a big deal. The details will be worked out and we will most likely see limited recruits allowed on campus at one time but I would expect the beginning to be treated like junior day visits, one that is invite only and one that is open to all who want to visit.
