Potential recruiting rules changes will highlight Saturday’s Division III business session at the 2015 NCAA Convention, held near Washington, D.C.
Five separate pieces of recruiting-centric legislation will be up for vote at Convention. The proposals would: allow on-campus athletics evaluations; allow contact after a recruit’s sophomore year of high school; permit the use of a non-binding celebratory athletics signing form; permit recruits to make a campus visit as of Jan. 1 of their junior year; and create a rule that aims to ease contact restrictions at competition sites.
Four of the proposals were cultivated through more than two years of work by the Division III Recruiting Working Group, which was tasked with examining all aspects of the division’s recruiting experience and finding ways to improve it for all parties involved. The proposals – all sponsored by either the Division III Presidents or Management Councils – are the fruits of that labor, though the group’s work will continue in 2015 as it develops a recruiting resource to help member schools recruit more efficiently.
Additionally, a pair of proposals that could reshape the regular and nontraditional seasons — which have drawn a great deal of attention from Division III members throughout this year’s legislative cycle — are part of the business session’s agenda. The first, a proposal originally brought by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, Centennial Conference and Midwest Conference, and subsequently co-sponsored by the Presidents Council, calls for up to a 10 percent reduction of contests and limits on dates of competition across all sports except cross country and football. However, as Saturday’s business session draws nearer, it appears likely that a motion will be called to refer that concept to the Division III Management Council’s Playing and Practice Seasons Subcommittee for a more comprehensive review of contest limits and other playing seasons regulations.
The other proposal calls for the football spring segment to be reshaped. That five-week period in the spring is currently used for strength and conditioning and limited skill instruction, with no contact. A group of 23 schools sponsored the proposal which would change the current limitations, though both the Presidents and Management Councils oppose it.
The proposal calls for limits on contact and equipment to be eased significantly.
Currently, only hand shields are allowed during the spring sessions, which are designated as noncontact conditioning and instructional periods. The proposal, though, calls for as many as seven days of full-pad practice, with live tackling allowed on three days. Two days would be devoted to full 11-on-11 scrimmages.
The Division III business session will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday and voting will commence shortly after.
All Division III Convention legislation:
- Permit waiver of exploratory year for Division III provisional and reclassifying members.
- Establish a National Collegiate Championship for women’s sand volleyball.
- Establish women’s sand volleyball as a Division III sport.
- Permit on-campus evaluations of prospective athletes.
- Revise the football nontraditional segment.
- Reduce the maximum number of contests and dates of competition.
- Permit contact with recruits after their sophomore year of high school.
- Permit an athletics non-binding celebratory signing form for recruits.
- Permit coaching staff to contact recruits on each day of competition.
- Permit recruits to make an official campus visit as of Jan. 1 of their junior year.