Video: How college coaches are adjusting to COVID-19 changes
The world of college sports has come to a complete halt as COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, continues to spread the country and the world.
With that, the NCAA has mandated new recruiting rules to help combat and preserve the safety and health of players and coaches alike.
On March 13, the college sports governing body decided to halt all in-person recruiting through April 15 — calling it a recruiting dead period. What that means is that there can be no face-to-face recruiting by coaches, whether it be on or off campus — but what is allowed are phone calls, video conferencing and texts.
The NCAA then announced on April 1 that they are extending the recruiting dead period until May 31 — until further notice.
This has particularly hurt basketball coaches Lynne Roberts and Larry Krystkowiak.
Roberts was already in the midst of recruiting, focusing on meeting with players and hosting them for official visits. Likewise, Krystkowiak, who's recruiting period doesn't begin until April 9th, was setting up his calendar for visits to hopefully add to next year's roster while looking ahead to future seasons.
For football coach Kyle Whittingham, this not only hurts this upcoming season as far as spring football goes, it hurts recruiting for the 2021 class because the Utes cannot host any recruits on campus, something they typically do during spring football.
“You can’t have any on-campus or off-campus recruiting going on right now, so the recruiting aspect of it is just mailings to the recruits, talking about the 2021 class, texts and all the ways the NCAA allows you to reach out to them,” Whittingham said. “They’re just getting pounded now. All these coaches have so much time on their hands, all these poor recruits are getting tons of material, so I guess it’s good and bad.”
Regardless of what the future may hold, this recruiting dead period until May 31 is really hurting the Utes — and colleges throughout the nation.