The spring recruiting period will look a bit different than usual in 2014.
Thanks to some complicated scheduling quirks, the NCAA has announced that there will only be one weekend in April -- the 25th-27th -- that will be a live period instead of two. That means that the time that coaches will be allowed to be on the road recruiting at NCAA certified events will be cut in half.
Originally, the weekend of May 16th-18th was supposed to be the second evaluation weekend in the spring, but coaches weren’t a fan of that decision.
The reason? According to John Infante, it’s as simple as the month being too busy:
A second weekend in April wasn’t available this year due to some scheduling conflicts. Per NCAA rules, the evaluation weekends have to be after the start of the spring signing period and cannot conflict with SAT, PSAT or ACT testing and must not be on Easter weekend. That wasn’t the case this year.
This will makes things tough on some coaches. Generally speaking, the April period is used as a time to track the development of players they are tracking. Who improved? Who hit a growth spurt? Who is out of shape? What sleepers haven’t been identified yet?