When the University of Colorado announced sweeping changes in its football recruiting policies last week, some viewed it as a drastic overreaction.
To others, Colorado administrators were simply ahead of the curve.
What nearly everyone agrees on is that the tighter the restrictions, the more they will benefit academically minded schools and those with strong local recruiting bases.
Colorado’s initiatives will limit recruiting visits to a single night. Supervision from a coach or parent will be mandatory. Recruits will have an 11 p.m. curfew and won’t be permitted to see the inside of a bar, let alone a strip club.
Although Colorado is the only known school with such rules, an NCAA task force formed last month to examine recruiting will likely recommend some similar measures.
And if that’s the case, recruits might have to rent the movie “Old School” to witness a raucous college party.
“This definitely helps the Northwesterns and Notre Dames,” ESPN.com recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said. “The one major negative of those schools is that there are not a lot of parties.”
Northwestern athletic director Mark Murphy doesn’t disagree.
“We want decisions to be made based on the academic quality of the institution and the value of the degree rather than where [the recruit] will have the best chance to become an NFL player or where he will have the best time [on his visit],” Murphy said.
Northwestern, Murphy said, tightened its rules for recruiting visits before allegations of wild parties and sexual assaults surfaced at Colorado, and before Chris Leeder, a Northwestern lineman from 1994 to 1997, told Sports Illustrated that recruits had been taken to strip clubs.
Years ago, Murphy said, the football players who serve as recruiting hosts were informed they could not provide alcohol to recruits and had to stay sober for the duration of a recruit’s visit. Needless to say, they were also told to steer clear of bars.
“We focused on the hosts–getting the right people and training them,” Murphy said.
The University of Illinois also has several guidelines in place to keep recruiting visits clean. Illinois requires recruits to return to their on-campus hotel room by 1 a.m. Recruits also must attend academic meetings on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. and are invited to coach Ron Turner’s home for a Sunday breakfast.
“We want to get them up and going,” Turner said.
Because Illinois recruits so heavily in the Chicago and St. Louis areas, supervision during visits is rarely a problem. Turner estimates that 75 percent of recruits bring at least one parent.
“We encourage it,” he said.
Another Colorado initiative the NCAA might adopt would be to ban official visits during the football season so coaches would have more time to supervise. Turner believes in that, but for a different reason.
“During the season we’re focusing on our games,” he said. “We’ve had very few visits during the season, maybe two in seven years.”
Turner, though, stands with many coaches who would like to see the visits remain at 48 hours.
Texas coach Mack Brown said campus visits are not just a time for recruits to evaluate a football program. It goes both ways.
“If you check in a kid for curfew at 1 o’clock and you need to stand outside the door,” he said, “then that’s probably a kid we don’t want.”
Brown said he feels for Colorado coach Gary Barnett, who was suspended with pay for remarks he made about a female former placekicker at Colorado, an alleged rape victim. In all, seven women have accused Colorado football players or recruits of sexual assault since 1997, though no formal charges have been filed.
“I’ve studied with Gary Barnett, and we’ve talked about discipline and shared ideas,” Brown said. “He does as good for his program as any coach in the country.”
Brown, though, said Texas would not change its recruiting policies to follow those of its Big 12 rival.
“We’re not going to do anything to become less competitive in the recruiting wars,” he said.
If the NCAA implements rules limiting official visits to 24 hours and requires parental supervision, Texas will be well protected.
The state is so rich in talent, every member of the Longhorns’ 19-man recruiting class hails from Texas. And because so many recruits and their parents live within driving distance, some visit the campus a half-dozen times through the recruiting year.
While Brown said he doesn’t foresee any “wholesale changes” in recruiting, he’d like the visits to reflect a student’s time on campus more realistically.
“We all worry about [freshmen] coming in and acting arrogant,” he said. “They fly in on fancy planes and eat at fancy restaurants, but they won’t eat there after they get here. They should focus on learning more about the university rather than having a good time. The visits should be serious.”
The Colorado scandal has led nearly every school to re-examine its policies for recruiting visits.
Iowa President David Skorton appointed an independent investigator Monday to look into an incident involving Nick Patton, the top-rated high school quarterback in Kansas.
Patton reportedly told the Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury last week that a female student from Iowa visited him several times after his recruiting visit to Iowa City. “She would stay in a motel, pay for all the meals, bring me Iowa shirts, a blanket, and said, `If you need money, just ask,'” Patton was quoted as saying.
Patton told the Des Moines Register on Sunday that he had been misquoted in the Mercury and that the woman had not encouraged him to sign with Iowa. Patton will play for Kansas State in the fall.
