and it is being brought by a group from the Ivy League schools. It's a rule I can't find myself standing on either side of it. I remember hearing about kids who had phone bills get extremely high and it ticked me off. (During Tebow's recruitment his dad made mention of how many times Meyer had contacted Tim this way.) However, I have to weigh that against the ability to text a recruit, have him call back, and it gets around the "no phone calls" rule currently in place. Either way, considering most cells are paid for by the school, those records will be easily tracked through "freedom of information" petitions. I do wonder, will the next step be looking at contact via email? Cecil Hurt wrote a pretty good article about it in the TUSCALOOSA NEWS <--- Mash that thing...
I thought that any contact with a recruit, solicited or no, is against the rules outside of the approved periods. If that isn't the case, that is how it should be IMHO. Some coach gets the cell number of a student (how does he get this? Does he do so unethically) and he won't give it to other coaches, giving him an unfair advantage in times of supposed silence.
Getting info like that is easy. While a coach can't talk to a player, it doesn't mean a coach can't talk to his high school coach, gauge interest, get contact #'s, and go from there. It's important to remember these no-contact/dead periods don't apply to kids calling the coach or school...it's the other way around.
One thing I don't understand is WHY coaches use cell phones to contact recruits in the first place. Might be a temporary convenience in schmoozing a recruit, but it seems like it would be way too easy for the number to leak. Do those numbers change on a weekly basis? Do coaches have graduate-assistant-cell-phone-text-messaging peons?
Yes. Although, a lot of the GA's use the 'net to send the messages. If you take the QB mentioned in the article, it was more than likely a GA that sent the message, asked him to call, and then the contact started. At least, that's the way it has been done in the past. You'd be surprised at just how much technology has changed the game the last decade. Heck, game tapes aren't game tapes anymore...
It's not just coaches who are calling recruits. National and local media, scouts, and other committed players are calling. When an article appears in Scout or Rival it's often the result of a cell phone interview since in-person contacts can't always be achieved. If you're a player hoping to increase your offers or increase a team's interest, you WANT your number out there. There are 2 ways to cut down on calls. Turn the phone off or announce your choice of schools. The calls will still come in but not as often. Everson Griffen commented at the relief from the call barrage after he committed. Yes, assistant coaches, position coaches, and grad assistants also make calls on a coaches behalf. What's more interesting is who brought the complaint. An Ivy League group? It's indicative of the NCAA leadership and how things are done. The sub committees are the ones who bring the actions and there are very few of them who come from big schools. Ivy leaguers know they are outmatched on the text/cell phone front so they want to change the rule. The NCAA needs to get better representation from "real" football schools. This is just one example of the imbalance. While this executive committee is to oversee NCAA Athletics into the next several years, football is still their bread and butter. Other than Georgia, what school on this list should be participating or having the President's ear when it comes to NCAA Div 1 College Football? The Old Dominion Conference? http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/!ut/...vernance/committees/governance_org_chart.html Once you bring up the link, click on Executive Committe, then Roster.
The text messaging issue has made a mockery of the "no contact" period. As I recall Urban Meyer was the first one who was publicly outed as a coach who relied heavily on text messaging and even more so messaging during the so called dead periods. This was bound to come up sooner or later and I suspect there will be new rules in place for text messaging very soon.
