Recruiting Apocalypse - class of 2021

[Big Jim]

Very interesting article from SI.com about the impact of Covid-19 on the class of 2021. With a very small class being projected for CU, maybe KD caught a break.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/04/17/college-football-recruiting-ncaa-coronavirus


Here are a few snips:

At the start of the outbreak last month, the NCAA created a recruiting dead period through May forbidding in-person contact between coaches and prospects—on or off campus. One Power 5 athletic director told Sports Illustrated earlier this week that the NCAA may extend the dead period through August, and already several schools have canceled prospect camps scheduled for June.

Many industry insiders expect a record number of decommitments in the fall and winter, as panicked prospects and their families, uncertain about the fall, rush to commit only later to renege. “It’s going to be a mess, but if you do your homework, you’ll lose a couple and might gain a couple,” says Arizona State coach Herm Edwards. “It is what it is.”

But maybe the No. 1 impact of the virus on recruiting comes in proximity of signees to their colleges, says Christian White, a private trainer in the Dallas area who’s immersed in the recruiting world. Colleges could sign more local kids than ever. With no chance to visit cross-country schools for four months, prospects will stick to what they already know: their nearby university.

The shutdown is also impacting recruits in another way: a lack of attrition from current rosters. The height of transfer season normally exists between the end of spring practice and the start of fall camp. Spring drills often reveal to players where they exist on a depth chart, triggering many to find other options and creating space for either signees or incoming transfers. “That isn’t happening as it was in the past,”

But maybe there are positives to all of this, too. Coaches, usually encumbered with spring practice and then on the road in May, have more free time to get a head start on the 2022 class. “They’re getting more offers out,” Hernandez says. “The 2022s have benefited in this whole thing.” Coaches also have more free time to call recruits, establishing better relationships with prospects and their families while also filling up their phones.

 

[96 Buff]

**** you.