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Christmas in June: NCAA recruiting dead period officially comes to an end
Published:
It’s over.
After sitting through a dead period that extended for over a year due to the pandemic, the NCAA is allowing official and unofficial visits to resume. The dead period ended at midnight on June 1, 2021. It had been in place since last March, when COVID-19 shut down the sports world.
Because there were no visits permitted and coaches were barred from live evaluations, staffs had to get creative in their recruiting pitches to potential student-athletes. To make matters even more difficult, the NCAA granted all fall student-athletes the opportunity to use one additional year of eligibility without penalty because of the unique circumstances presented by the pandemic.
Typically, the summer months of June and July are huge recruited times anyway. After spending 14 months recruiting via text messages, phone calls, social media and other unique avenues, the next few months will become even more prominent with live recruiting opportunities.
Traditional powers like Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan have continued to recruit at a high level in the B1G. Greg Schiano has improved recruiting at Rutgers and Mike Locksley has done a great job at Maryland, as well.
How much will recruiting change in the B1G now with the floodgates open? It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next two months and beyond.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB