News spread quickly across college football Wednesday afternoon, sparking reactions of joy and relief: The NCAA is moving to ban recruiting photo shoots during unofficial visits.
According to a document distributed by the Division I Council and obtained by AthleticismThe Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee introduced legislation this week “prohibiting, during unofficial visits by a prospective football student-athlete, institutional involvement in arranging photographs or photographing the potential student-athlete and those who support him or her.”
This proposal is subject to a new fast-track legislative system and, now that it has been introduced, NCAA members have 45 days to comment and provide feedback. The oversight committee is expected to meet at the end of November to finalize its recommendation on the subject. This will then be presented to the DI Council on January 10. If the proposal is then adopted, it would come into force on March 1, 2024.
In short, it’s probably safe to prepare the confetti. Strong reactions and celebratory GIFs poured in from recruiting staff when this proposed rule change was made public. A longtime soccer creative director asked when the vote would take place, joking that creatives around the world would await the news “like the result of an election.”
“In a world where you worry about everything, it’s one less thing to worry about,” said a Big 12 director of player personnel. “I think it’s a big win. “
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The recruiting photoshoot has reached the point where staff members say they never wanted it, becoming a huge burden on the recruiting and creative teams. Two associate athletic directors said this is a very pressing issue in football due to the high volume of unofficial visits — there are more than 200 days in the 2022-23 FBS recruiting calendar in which programs can accommodate unofficial visits – but that’s also something that all recruiting sports now expect. This is a loss for the athletic department.
For the past two years, at the annual Personnel and Recruiting Symposium in Nashville, football scouts from across the country have voiced their opinions on this topic. A survey of more than 100 staff members at last year’s event found that 78 percent support only photo ops being allowed during official visits. The remaining 20 percent thought the rule should not change, and 2 percent voted to completely eliminate photo ops as part of the recruiting process.
“I just think the amount of time and energy we’re asking of our equipment staff and our creative teams is astronomical and almost insane.” state of ohio said associate AD for player personnel and general manager Mark Pantoni last summer. “I think a lot of us are faced with the fact that the only thing these kids are interested in when they visit campus is the photoshoot. It really took away the meaning of visiting campus.
The topic sparks passionate reactions in the recruiting community. In an anonymous 2021 recruiting survey of assistant coachessaid a CAA aide Athleticism, “You know how “The Terminator” is about going back in time to stop something really bad from happening? Whoever came up with this, I think a lot of coaches would like to see this guy get fired.
This isn’t just a quality issue, although that has become more extreme than ever. the use of luxury cars and even live animals has become normalized. The recruiters, who requested anonymity to avoid being put at a recruiting disadvantage for discussing an aspect of the job they don’t like, say it’s the quantity that wears them out. Photo sessions for 7-on-7 teams whose prospects are not seriously recruited. Photoshoots with targets wanting to try on all uniform combinations. Photo sessions for seventh and eighth graders. Where do they draw the line?
“It also puts a strain on resources and people,” said a chief executive of a Group of 5 school. “There is a knock-on effect from recruitment staff to creative staff and management staff. ‘equipment. That takes time.
If you ask people working in the recruitment industry, the waste of time and resources becomes more frustrating every year. Now was also the time to try to resolve this issue, as the DI Council recently passed another reform allowing prospects to take unlimited official visits. Pantoni pushed the Oversight Committee to review that proposal and also submitted it to a recruiting subcommittee and the Big Ten in hopes that if his conference led the way, the rest would follow.
Not all programs would be happy with the removal of the photo op. For schools like Oregon that have the most beloved uniforms in sports, the photo session is one of the most anticipated moments of the prospects’ visit. The chief executive of One Power 5 said he’s not a fan of the proposed change because it takes away that opportunity from people who don’t take official visits. A Pac-12 recruiting director raised another concern that could be an unintended consequence of this reform: Could it somehow devalue the role of some recruiting and creative staffers charged with making decisions? Pictures ? It’s a good question. And one Power 5 head coach simply said he thought the rule change would reward staff he considered “lazy.”
The majority of coaches and staff, however, greeted Wednesday’s news with a sense of relief and began the official countdown to January 10.
(Photo courtesy of Walker White)
