Alex Grinch says recruiting in the COVID era 'couldn't be much more different' than it was
Oklahoma coaches have had a lot of time on their hands lately.
“Kind of weird,” said head coach Lincoln Riley.
“It couldn’t get a whole lot more different, honestly,” said defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.
The pandemic and the ensuing shutdown – particularly the NCAA’s decision to extend its moratorium on in-person college football recruiting – has been hard to adapt to.
Grinch spoke on a video press conference Wednesday, and he said it didn’t matter whether it was an open date (last week) or a home game (the week before), there are almost always coaches on the road visiting recruits or making evaluations or gathering information, or they’re visiting with them before or after OU games.
“You’re on the phone with guys, on FaceTime with guys, you’re constantly saying ‘Come to a game, come to a game, come to a game,’ because you have such a great product and great venue here at Oklahoma that you want to sell,” Grinch said. “And so that, like I said, couldn’t be much different.”
On Tuesday, Riley expressed confusion, surprise and dissatisfaction with the NCAA’s decision last week to wipe out the rest of the 2020 recruiting calendar.
“We’re still able to make contact with the guys that we want to be making contact with,” Riley said. “It’s still a phone call, FaceTime, virtual world, of course. And it looks like with the NCAA’s decision, it’s going to be that for the next coming months.
“So, I mean, it’s something we’re kind of used to right now. You know, it’s been different not having the (staff) on the road during a bye week. That certainly felt different, I think for our coaches, for everybody.
“And then certainly, having the home game the other day and only having to worry about coaching the team was kind of weird. I’m used to having to do a whole lot more. I think our staff is used to doing a whole lot more, not only trying to win a football game, but conducting visits and all that.”
“When you talk about the recruiting side of things, there’s always two sides of it,” Grinch said. “One, it’s bringing guys in to sell them on you, and then the other side of it is the evaluation side of things. Both those things are different and equally so in terms of both those sides being important.”
Grinch explained that missing spring football evaluations not on the 2021 class, but the 2022s and 2023s, has been crucial.
“If evaluating guys remotely was the best way to get an evaluation of individuals you’re looking to possibly bring into your program, we would have done this a long time ago. Video conferencing is not new,” Grinch said. “So that aspect is different. Watching video – some guys are not playing. Some haven’t played yet. You know, they didn’t have spring track. You’re trying to see how guys developed. You didn’t have the summer camp circuits. That aspect of things is just a critical, critical piece.”
Grinch said the phone-call and FaceTime element is “similar” to what it was. Coaches actually use electronic contact even more now than they did before, so that part has been good.
“But you do miss the 1-on-1 and you miss the game day,” Grinch said. ‘But that’s something that’s not going away any time soon. And so we’ve got to do the best with it and find a way to sign the best class possible.”
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