Georgia’s Kirby Smart and other college football coaches who stashed away proposed plans for satellite camps figure to be putting them into action once again after a ban was rescinded on Thursday.
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors reversed a rule passed by the Division I Council that outlawed FBS coaches from holding or working at camps and clinics away from their campuses.
The latest decision allows Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer and others to hold camps in fertile-rich areas in the Southeast including Atlanta like they had planned.
The SEC and ACC were against such camps, but now Smart and SEC schools will be free to jump in starting May 29. That’s the first permissible date for such non-institutional camps, according to an SEC spokesperson. The SEC approved legislation allowing coaches to take part in camps at the league's spring meetings in 2015 if the camps weren't banned.
“While we are disappointed with the NCAA governance process result, we respect the Board of Directors’ decision and are confident SEC football programs will continue to be highly effective in their recruiting efforts," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement Thursday.
He added: "We continue to believe football recruiting is primarily an activity best-focused in high schools during the established recruiting calendar, which has provided opportunities for football prospective student-athletes from all across the country to obtain broad national access and exposure but with appropriate guidance from high school coaches, teachers and advisors that focuses on both their academic and athletic opportunities as they decide where they will play college football."
Smart said after the intial ban was enacted: “We were gung-ho, we were going to do what we had to do. We were going to go do some satellite camps, but to be honest with you it’s probably a sigh of relief as far as the stress of having to go out and control the controllable.”
Now Georgia is likely to venture out to interact with top prospects even though Smart has said he prefers recruits take part in camps instead on campus.
Georgia already has summer camp dates announced in Athens from June 1-10 and on June 13-14. There was no immediate word from Georgia on Smart's plans now that camps are permitted again.
Smart had said before the ban was in place that “we’ve got a plan ready. You’ll see soon enough.”
That plan now could include Smart and his assistants holding camps in places where Georgia has had success recruiting like South Florida and North Carolina or perhaps the Maryland/Virginia area or Alabama, where Smart spent the last nine years coaching.
There was pushback after the initial ban from those who said not holding camps took away opportunities for prospects to get seen. The U.S. Department of Justice began an informal inquiry into the camps, according to USA Today, looking at whether players would lose opportunities or lose access to college coaches. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said UCLA’s athletic director voted incorrectly for the camp vote because the conference did not want camps to be banned. The final tally then was 10-5 with two votes each going to the power five conferences.
The NCAA Board of Directors Thursday directed the Council to conduct “a broad assessment of the FBS recruiting environment.” Board of Directors chair Harris Pastides, South Carolina’s president, said it “is interested in a holistic review of the football recruiting environment and camps are a piece of that puzzle.”
The Board wants recommendations for improving the football recruiting environment from the Council by Sept. 1, which is the deadline for legislation to be submitted for the 2016-17 cycle.
In the meantime, North Texas, Fresno State and SMU wasted little time after the camp ban was lifted to tweet out its satellite camp dates and locations. Arizona revealed plans for Hawaii, Los Angeles, San Diego, Utah, Tampa and more locales.