The NCAA Council this week is expected to set an end date of June 1 for the long-standing recruiting dead period multiple sources told CBS Sports. The dead period was imposed in March 2020 after COVID-19 shut down college sports. It was extended eight times over the past year as the global pandemic raged, the last time in February.
With widespread distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, it has become easier to envision more in-person contact, including football camps and official visits, beginning in June. For more than a year, college football coaches have been able to do little more in recruiting than hold Zoom calls with prospects.
"Everything I'm hearing, we're headed toward June 1," a source close to the NCAA Council said.
Schools like Florida already have official visits scheduled each weekend in June with the expectation that dead period will end.
"As soon as it expires, there will be pandemonium," Florida coach Dan Mullen said. "It will be waves upon waves upon waves upon waves of kids coming to visit."
CBS Sports reported last month that the NCAA Football Oversight Committee recommended to the NCAA Council a June 1 end to the dead period; however, the council did not act at that time. It is more zeroed in now after discussing the recommendation.
There are two models being considered. One would pick up where a normal recruiting calendar would be in each respective sport on June 1. The other would be a hybrid model that would phase in what has been called a "modified quiet period".
During a recruiting dead period, programs are not allowed to host recruits nor visit them at their homes or schools. The NCAA first implemented a dead period on March 13, 2020, the day after the NCAA Tournament was canceled.
During a quiet period, college football programs can host recruits on campus and conduct camps.
"No matter what, it's visits and camps and clinics [being allowed on June 1]," a NCAA Council source said.
The NCAA Council, a 40-person body responsible for day-to-day NCAA legislative and policy decision making, is scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday this week. It has a representative from each of the 32 Division I conferences with voting is weighted toward the 10 FBS conferences, and within that, the Power Five (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC).
If the FBS conferences vote as a group, they control 56.3% of the voting points. However, the Power Five cannot decide the issue on its own. Those conferences control only 37.5% of the total vote.
