Division I Council proposes football staff size limits

[BMF]

Targeting Alabama? DI Council proposes football staff limitations

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/s...-council-proposes-football-staff-limitations/

College football program staff sizes have ballooned in recent years, especially at the off-field support level, but a new proposal could put a cap on them.

Legislation introduced into the 2017-18 cycle by the Division I Council, if passed, would require schools to designate 30 individuals who will participate in on-campus football recruiting activities in FBS, according to NCAA.com. If passed, the proposal would become effective Aug. 1, 2018.

Those people would be able to initiate written and electronic correspondence with prospective student-athletes, their parents or legal guardians.

Current staffs have a head coach and nine assistants, but that will increase on Jan. 9 to 10 assistants. It also would include all graduate assistant coaches. FBS schools are allowed a maximum of four graduate assistants in football. There is no limit on off-the-field assistants such as quality control staff members.

Each school would be required to declare those designations before its first preseason practice.

Schools could make changes to the designations only because of attrition, and any change would require the approval of the director of athletics.

Under the proposal, all designees would be required to pass the NCAA recruiting exam every year before engaging in any recruiting activities.

“We feel we have reinforced the rules that are already on the books,” said Bob Bowlsby, chair of the Football Oversight Committee and commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. “The head coach, the soon to be 10 assistants and the four graduate assistants are the people who are supposed to be coaching student-athletes, preparing them for the game and doing the recruiting.”

Bowlsby and Alabama coach Nick Saban have been on opposite sides of this issue for months. It racheted up in the spring when Saban reacted to Bowlsby, who said the NCAA Football Oversight Committee he chairs will take a “deep dive” on personnel in the next year with the potential goal of regulating the number of people an individual program employs, AL.com reported. Bowlsby mentioned that one unspecified school employed a football staff of 97 people that included analysts, coaches and other administrators. The assumption was that Bowlsby was talking about Alabama, AL.com reported.

“All these people who complain about staff sizes — we pay interns, really, really little money, a very small amount of money,” Saban said. “You would be shocked at how cheap the labor really is — almost like criminal. And why we have administrators complaining about how many cheap-labor people you have, trying to promote the profession, trying to do something to develop our game and the coaches in our game because how else do you develop guys?”

 

[MidwestChomp]

Wow the NCAA might do something that will upset Saban...unreal.

 

[BMF]

I want to see what McElwain does w/ the 10th coach. It BETTER be a new ST's coach! (and he better can Nord!)

 

[BMF]

D1 Council has also proposed new Transfer rules and Early Signing Period:

https://www.ncaa.org/about/resource...-council-introduces-early-recruiting-proposal

The new model would move official visits from the opening day of classes during a prospect’s senior year to Sept. 1 of his or her junior year. The change aligns the first day of official visits with the first day for recruiting phone calls and written correspondence.

The Division I Council this week introduced the new model, recommended by the Division I Student-Athlete Experience Committee, into the 2017-18 legislative cycle. It does not apply to football or basketball. Football changed its recruiting model in April to add earlier visits. Men’s and women’s basketball already have an earlier visit date.

Additionally, athletics departments would not be able to participate in a recruit’s unofficial visit until Sept. 1 of their sophomore year in high school. (See sidebar box for more information.)

The changes are based on the work of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the Student-Athlete Experience Committee, and guided by feedback from student-athletes, athletics directors and compliance administrators. They are considered a first step toward regulating a recruiting process that can begin in middle school — and sometimes even earlier.

“These changes would better align the student-athlete recruitment process to the timeline of the general student,” said Justin Sell, chair of the Student-Athlete Experience Committee and athletics director at South Dakota State. “Student-athletes support this change, which will help high school students with their decision-making process.”

Jimmy Gehrels, a member of the Student-Athlete Experience Committee and former men’s volleyball student-athlete at Pepperdine, said the new model would benefit prospective student-athletes.

“This is going to help student-athletes have the ability to make an educated decision on where they end up,” Gehrels said. “And it’s based on the model SAAC built in July. We look forward to continuing these conversations.”

As part of the proposal, schools would be prohibited from providing game tickets to prospects before Sept. 1 of their sophomore year, unless the visit is unrelated to athletics recruitment. Additionally, coaches would be prohibited from recruiting conversations with a prospect at a camp or clinic until the same date.

An additional concept will be referred to the autonomy conferences for consideration in their legislative process. Student-Athlete Experience Committee members believe schools should be allowed to pay for two parents or guardians to accompany prospective student-athletes on official visits. Due to the separate governance structure, the autonomy conferences are the only conferences that can propose and vote on a change to this legislation.



https://www.ncaa.org/about/resource...sfer-group-considers-notification-legislation


The Division I Transfer Working Group will develop over the next several weeks proposals intended to improve the transfer environment for college athletes, coaches and teams.

After the group’s Oct. 1-2 meeting in Indianapolis, working group chair Justin Sell said he was pleased with the group’s progress.

“The excellent membership and student-athlete feedback really helped the working group in its discussions this week,” said Sell, athletics director at South Dakota State. “I am confident that in the next few weeks we will come forward with a solid recommendation that will make a real difference in the transfer environment.”

The Division I Council could introduce some legislation as early as the 2017-18 cycle. The deadline for concepts to be considered this academic year is Nov. 1. Legislation addressing immediate eligibility for student-athletes who meet an academic benchmark and graduate student financial aid will not be considered in this year’s cycle.

More than 2,000 athletics administrators, faculty and head coaches responded to a survey whose results provided the working group with key ideas and input that it will consider more fully in the months ahead.

The most significant change that could be considered this year would eliminate the ability of coaches and schools to restrict aid to student-athletes after transferring. Currently, Division I college athletes who wish to transfer to another school must first receive permission from their current school to discuss transfer opportunities with other schools. If the school denies permission, the student-athlete can’t receive athletics aid for the first year after transferring.

The working group is still finalizing specifics, but it plans to ask the Council to introduce legislation that would establish a notification model, allowing a student to notify a school that he or she will transfer. The student could then pursue transfer opportunities and accept scholarships at other schools.

Additionally, once notification is given, the current school would have the option of not renewing athletics aid, permitting the school to offer that scholarship when recruiting a student-athlete for the next year.

Specific details will be discussed over the coming weeks, including timing and how students can more transparently communicate that they are looking for a new school. A companion piece of legislation, which would add notification of transfer to the list of reasons a school can decline to renew a scholarship, is under consideration and would need to be proposed and considered by the schools in the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences.

Most survey respondents supported the shift to a notification of intent to transfer model. However, head coach feedback influenced the working group’s decision to move toward a notification of transfer model from the notification of intent to transfer. The change eliminated ambiguity about a student-athlete’s intent.

Additionally, the group recommended the Council introduce a proposal that would add tampering to the list of Level II violations, which are considered significant breaches of conduct by the Division I Committee on Infractions. More than two-thirds of the groups surveyed indicated they back such a change, with 92 percent of athletics directors indicating support.

Working group members believe this change is important and received enough broad support in the survey that they moved ahead to recommend legislation. The Council acted on that recommendation and introduced the proposal.

Working group members noted that feedback from other Division I groups — including the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Board of Directors, Presidential Forum and Committee on Academics — will be critical as the group continues to develop concepts related to postgraduate financial aid and uniform transfer rules.

 

[BMF]

Friday, October 6, 2017

What can the NCAA do about the size of football support staffs?

Chris Vannini writes:

Are college football support staff sizes getting out of control? It depends who you ask.

Nick Saban will tell you Alabama’s massive staff provides opportunities for people who want to get into or stay in coaching, helping in a sport with more than 100 players on a given roster. Boston College coach Steve Addazio will tell you there should be a cap, just like with full-time coaches and graduate assistants, to keep a more even playing field.

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced another attempt to limit staff size. A proposal would require FBS schools, beginning in August 2018, to designate 30 individuals before fall camp who can participate in on-campus recruiting activities. This would include all countable on-field coaches, and those 30 individuals would be able to initiate written and electronic correspondence with recruits and their parents.

The reaction from a few recruiting staffers The All-American reached out to about this? It wouldn’t really affect them. It would only affect the schools with the largest recruiting staffs, because 30 is a pretty big number. Not all support staffers are in recruiting; Most “analysts” deal with film breakdown and game-planning instead.

The issue of rapidly-expanding support staffs has been around for years, and they’re only getting bigger. Mack Brown, when he was the head coach at Texas, said he expected a cap on staff size to be put in place. It never happened.

Why? Some coaches point to labor laws. In the 1990s, a court ruled against the NCAA in a case that examined the limits placed on restricted-earnings coaches in basketball. New Texas coach Tom Herman referenced that case when asked about college football staff size this summer at the Big 12's media days.

“I think it probably should (be limited), to a certain extent,” Herman said in July. “It should be far enough out there that those of us that can afford it can be there, but not go absolutely bananas, should you get some program that throws caution to the wind and the checkbook to the wind. To say I have confidence that will ever happen, I don’t, just because of the labor issue. Ask the NCAA how the restricted-earnings coaching thing worked out.”

If the NCAA can’t limit the number of people a school can hire, it can at least try to regulate their roles. There are limits on the number of people who can be an on-field coach, on the number who can be graduate assistant coaches and the number who can be strength and conditioning coaches. A limit on who exactly can be involved in on-campus recruiting may be the next step.

In the meantime, the Division I Football Oversight Committee will gather feedback on this proposal and review that for its next meeting in January.

 

[ppinesgator]

Excellent idea limiting size of the coaching staffs. Can they next limit the size of room and services available to being comparable to the dorms for the regular student population? No more athletes-only putt putt courses and such?

Then how about reasonable limits to coaches' salaries? What should that be tied to..... maybe to a percentage of the school's total scholastic and athletic budget?

I've said it before and I'll say it, ad nausea - money will be the ruination of college football.

 

[BMF]

Excellent idea limiting size of the coaching staffs. Can they next limit the size of room and services available to being comparable to the dorms for the regular student population? No more athletes-only putt putt courses and such?

Then how about reasonable limits to coaches' salaries? What should that be tied to..... maybe to a percentage of the school's total scholastic and athletic budget?

I've said it before and I'll say it, ad nausea - money will be the ruination of college football.

I tend to agree, to a point. It's such a "have's vs. have not's" in CFB. Every time the "players should be paid" discussion/argument comes up it's irritating because, sure, UF, Bama, Ohio State, Texas and similar programs could pull it off...but the East Carolina's, Southern Miss's, FAU's, FIU's, UCF's, Idaho's, etc cannot do it.

The one issue I'd like to see addressed is the "cost of attendance" stipend. FSU is paying more than $1,000 more than we are. WTF? Tennessee's is out of control high. Knoxville is more expensive than Gainesville? It should be a flat figure across the board, say $5,000/year....or up to a certain amount. The schools get to arbitrarily say how much the COA is. And many aren't paying it all, such as many of the Group of Five schools. Again, the have's vs. have not's.

 

[ppinesgator]

Yep. I agree with every word.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

It should be a flat figure across the board, say $5,000/year....or up to a certain amount. The schools get to arbitrarily say how much the COA is.

That is EXACTLY the way the rule is. We choose to set our "Cost of Living" lower than Clown Town, just like we choose to act like a HAVE NOT instead of a HAVE.