May 13 has, as of Wednesday's press release, become the most significant date on the current, adjusted NCAA football recruiting calendar. The NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee will decide on whether the current recruiting dead period, which was recently extended to May 31, will extend through June.
June is the single most significant recruiting month during any recruiting cycle, as a majority of prospects will fill their June weekends with official visits that will educate and fuel their commitment decisions in July. June 1-21 is the scheduled quiet period when those visits will take place. Following that quiet period, there is a month-long (June 22-July 24) dead period, followed by a two-week quiet period before the 2020 high school football seasons begin.
In other words, June and July are when commitments happen, particularly the biggest commitments of the cycle. For Indiana, the Hoosiers earned seven of their 19 commitments during the 2020 recruiting cycle through this two-month period (10-of-22 in 2019, 10-of-26 in 2018).
RELATED: How has the COVID-19-induced dead period affected recruiting?
Even though Indiana has a plan to re-open by July 4, that will likely not impact the decision the NCAA committee makes on May 13.
If June is, in fact, determined to be a dead period, as all of April and May (and half of March) were, prospects will be making their visits and decisions during their senior seasons – if there is a season – lengthening their recruitments far longer than even pre-Early Signing Period days. In some cases, as has been seen throughout this spring, some prospects could desire to have that decision taken care of and make a pledge to the school they were leaning toward anyway.
In the meeting and the subsequent press release Wednesday, the committee also touched on a number of other recruiting facets, all waivers that will go into place May 11:
-- Any member of the staff may contribute to a call (video or phone) with countable coaches (i.e. head coach and 10 assistants) and uncommitted prospects. Before the waiver, only specific members were allowed to contribute with countable coaches.
-- There is now no restriction on how many uncommitted prospects and family members that can be on one call with a countable coach.
-- Current student-athletes can contribute to calls with uncommitted prospects and countable coaches, as long as the time spent on the call is working toward the eight allotted hours student-athletes are permitted with countable coaches, a rule set in place on April 20.
-- Signees can begin contributing to virtual team activities once high school graduation requirements are met, which, depending on the school district, could take place before the end of May. Uncommitted prospects can sit in on one day of virtual team activities, meant to simulate campus visits they would otherwise be taking.
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