Yahoo Sports 
Duke's David Cutcliffe has concerns about earlier official visits for recruits
Duke coach David Cutcliffe sure isn’t wholeheartedly endorsing the recruiting rules changes that could become official in 2018.
The NCAA is a formal step away from adding an early signing period for football recruits. As part of the overhaul to current recruiting rules, high school players would be allowed to take official visits starting April 1 of their junior seasons. Cutcliffe said Wednesday that the “unintended consequences” of early visits would be “brutal.”
“I think it’s irresponsible, to be honest with you,” Cutcliffe said on the ACC teleconference. “We’ve got to respect springtime in high schools, whether it’s spring sports, spring football, coaches, teachers in high school. We’ve got a situation where if you go April, May, June with official visits, right now, we don’t have contacts with juniors and January or December of their junior year. It’s going to force more that you’re going to have to just walk away. How does that young man really decide?
“It’s going to take people, not just your players and your coaches but an official visit requires a lot of people. That’s faculty, your staff, equipment room, weight room, trainers, academic support. I don’t think anybody really understands the day-to-day operation. There are parts of this that may be good. There are parts of it that may be true. But it’s just a little irresponsible. I would call it reckless to move forward.”
Players are currently limited to five official visits overall and just one per school. At an official visit, the school can provide transportation and lodging accommodations and each trip may not last longer than 48 hours. There’s no limit to the number of unofficial visits a recruit can take.
Cutcliffe also added that he believed there wasn’t much support for early official visits among members of the American Football Coaches Association. The AFCA unanimously supported the move to an early signing period in January.
The proposed new signing period would be in December. Right now, prospects aren’t allowed to sign with a school until National Signing Day, the first Wednesday in February. Official visits can currently begin the first day of a recruit’s senior year of high school.
“There was nobody at the AFCA, and I think we got a little misrepresented there,” Cutcliffe said. “There was nobody in favor of this in the assistant coaches ranks. Maybe one school talked a little bit about it, but not really in favor. I just don’t think it’s going to help us in any form or fashion. Also, unofficial visits have been around a long time. And what that does is make young people decide where they’re really interested.
“You open this up, where you’re flying parents and young people in, it’s going to be hard to tell where, if they take five trips, where are they really interested? So I don’t have enough time. I don’t want to dominate my time, because I have some limited time right now. I’ve got some other things I’ve got to do, but, yeah, I don’t like it a bit, to be honest with you.”
More college football on Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
