Point-Counterpoint: Notre Dame & Virtual Recruiting
COST, TIME SAVINGS MAKE VIDEO RECRUITING A WIN-WIN — By Todd Burlage
From financial hardships, to canceled sports seasons, to home schooling, the COVID-19 pandemic is changing every aspect of college life.
And with no immediate foreseeable end to social distancing and other limit-contact orders, online video visits have become the new normal for Notre Dame coaches, university administrators and athletic support staff wanting to track current Irish student-athletes or contact potential recruits.
Obviously, virtual engagement through Zoom, Skype, FaceTime and other online methods have their kinks and aren’t as personal as the traditional in-home face-to-face visit coaches and players share. That said, video correspondence is the best evolution to recruiting since air travel, both fiscally for schools and personally for coaches.
This week head coach Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame football secured a verbal commit from three-star Rhode Island defensive end Jason Onye — who never even set foot on the campus. Last month, men’s basketball coach Mike Brey signed Santa Clara transfer guard Trey Wertz and Florida freshman wing Tony Sanders even though the two prospects had not visited the school.
When you are truly interested in attending a specific school, one can get a grasp of what it is through such contact and communication.
Notre Dame recruiting coordinator Brian Polian often jokes and laughs about his familiarity with Hawai'i because of his countless recruiting trips to the islands. Here’s betting his wife and family didn’t find those long trips week after week amusing.
Irish running backs coach and ace recruiter, Lance Taylor, worked extensively while courting highly coveted running back recruit Will Shipley at Weddington High School in North Carolina, including visiting him twice in one week during December.
Shipley ultimately chose Clemson, and Taylor’s time proved wasted — as did the thousands of dollars Notre Dame invested into this intense but fruitless recruitment. Shipley could have waited until the end of his senior year if he was that torn between the Irish and Tigers. And he could have still made the same choice, yet that would have also resulted in more "courting" expenses.
Virtual recruiting may not provide the intimacy of an in-home visit. But couple the time savings for coaches with the budget savings for schools, and this new recruiting method needs to become the primary recruiting method.
NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THE REAL THING — By Lou Somogyi
Would you be comfortable marrying your spouse based on communicating mainly via video and not spending quality time in person? How about purchasing a home where you don’t get to see or feel it inside, even though the video production of it looks wonderful?
Those are important long-term decisions, as is a student-athlete deciding what school best fits his or her needs over the next four or five years — and then especially the next 40. There is nothing like actually being there, or seeing a coach at home personally, to get a sense of true interaction and sense of community.
There is undeniably enormous waste in collegiate athletics with both the extravagant and frivolous, particularly when it comes to the never-ending arms race with facilities and the like. That is something that always needs to be addressed by university presidents and the NCAA, especially with what the pandemic has wrought and brought to light.
However, when it comes to a student-athlete deciding on a school, it cannot be limited to such relatively impersonal contact via video. It’s not only about the coach-player relationship, but meeting with academic advisors, deans, walking the campus, touring a potential future dorm and getting an overall sense of what “feels right” in person. The same goes for a coach visiting a prospect's high school and home.
This is especially true at a place such as Notre Dame, which recruits nationally. Prospects from all over the country will either feel it or they won’t. And it is a whole different ball game when coaches actually sit in-person in your house.
Maybe if Shipley had not had to cancel his March 21 visit to Notre Dame because of COVID-19, he would have made a different decision. Maybe not. But he sure couldn't get the same vibe on video as he could have actually watching a practice or touring the campus with potential future teammates.
A good step to eliminate budget waste was taken a couple of years ago in football with the early signing period in December. Coaches then no longer had to spend time “re-recruiting” all of January the players who had already committed prior to the February signing period.
Other regulations to stop such waste also can be implemented by the NCAA. Limiting recruiting to a “virtual” event isn’t one of them.
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