How an Extended Recruiting Dead Period Impacts WVU

Neal Brown and his staff have some big challenges ahead

This week, the NCAA announced that it would be extending the recruiting dead period through January 1st, 2021.

In a way, this is not too surprising considering the NCAA has been very aggressive with extending the recruiting dead period since the pandemic first hit.  However, is this extension a little too premature?

Yes, it is, and for a lot of reasons.

I understand that the virus is a serious matter, but there are ways to make in-person visits happen. There are still several schools around the country that are having in-person classes, which have more people involved than a recruiting visit. 

Choosing a college is a very tough decision, but it's even tougher if that athlete has never seen the school up close and in person. Over the last several years of covering recruiting, I've seen many recruits that have West Virginia high on their list, and then when they visit, they don't come away having the same interest. There have also been several occasions where a recruit was on the fence about WVU, but they fell in love with the place after visiting. 

A big part of the recruiting process is feeling out the coaching staff and seeing how "real" they are or how much they really want you. Over Zoom calls, it's hard to decipher how interested a coach is in a player, and coaches could seem totally different on a call then they would in person. 

This is where I think it hurts WVU.

Neal Brown is a closer in recruiting. He knows how to sell a kid on the program, and when recruits and their families meet with him in person, it gives West Virginia a much better chance. Not that Brown can't win over recruits on a Zoom call, but again, it's not the same.

From an evaluation standpoint, it makes it tougher on the coaching staff having to rely on hudl highlights only and not get to see the recruits in live-action. They only get sent the good plays, the strengths of what each player can do. They won't be able to see he dropped a ball here, ran the wrong route there, missed an assignment on this play, etc. 

Neal Brown talked about how different this recruiting cycle is and how much live evaluations impact their decisions.

"We'll definitely spend more time on recruiting this week. I'll tell you, we've gotten more practice film and workout film to evaluate then we would in a normal fall situation - it's different. I really miss the live evaluations. I think that's something that everybody across college football misses. The good thing is, I guess everybody's on the same playing field, nobody's getting live evaluations. It's difficult, but we're making the most of it."

Neighboring teams like Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, and others have been able to recruit the region fairly hard during their time away from football and Brown says he believes that's given those types of schools a slight advantage. "The schools that haven't been playing, they've been able to spend all their time recruiting so we're a little behind compared to the people we compete against."

West Virginia currently has 14 commits in the 2021 recruiting class.

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