RECRUITING: Post on satellite camps

[Neal McCready]

Jay G. Tate of the Auburn site is in Destin, Fla. this week as well. Here's his post on satellite camps:

SATELLITE CAMPS

What this means: The NCAA requires football programs to hold its summer camps either on campus, within the state or out of state within a 50-mile radius for teams situated near a border. Recently, a few Big Ten coaches have used a loophole that allows coaches to become "guest coaches" anywhere. That's how Penn State's James Franklin held camps in Atlanta and Florida last season and how Michigan's Jim Harbaugh is going to hold camps throughout the country this summer.

The SEC has a rule that expressly prohibits guest coaching and holding camps off campus. The ACC basically has a handshake agreement in place to stick by the SEC on this issue. The Big Ten, Pac 12 and Big 12, to this point, have been unwilling to even consider legislation outlawing this kind of stuff.

So the SEC has two options: Either change its own rules to allow this kind of stuff or continue informally pressuring the other "power" conferences to outlaw satellite camps.

Here is how the SEC coaches weigh in:

• HUGH FREEZE (Ole Miss) is against them. "I'm not for satellite camps. I think our league has said that, wish everyone was the same as us. I have no idea if that's going to be discussed so a better time to ask would be to ask some of the coaches afterwards. I'm not for that. I think we've got our hands full just trying to run our camps on our campus. Now if others are going to do it, if it is going to be a consistent thing that continues to grow I'll have to reevaluate my position on that probably somewhat.''

• JIM McELWAIN (Florida) appears to be undecided. "Whatever the rules are, we’re all going to play by them. The important thing for us as a conference …. now I was kind of an outsider looking in. … I think the legislation that we have, to limit ourselves where others aren’t limited, other conferences that can use that against us in recruiting, we need to probably do is come to some form of agreement nationally as to this is what we’re going to do. I think that’s really the biggest thing right now is where it’s at. Selfishly, I’d like to keep them out of the state of Florida."

• NICK SABAN (Alabama) is against them. "We have a lot of crazy rules. A head coach is not allowed to go out during an evaluation period in the spring, but you can go have a satellite camp anywhere in the country to bring your staff in and bring players to it? Does that make any sense to anybody? So, I think we should have recruiting periods and evaluation periods, and the only time that you should be able to have camp is on your campus. And if the player is interested enough to come to a camp on your campus, then that should be the way it is."

• BRET BIELEMA (Arkansas) is against them, but for a different reason. "The one thing that’s universal is we all would prefer that rule become the one that we currently have nationally. The NCAA invented the dead week two years ago for a reason. As coaches, we’re absolutely cannibalizing every day that we have because of the recruiting rules.”

• MARK RICHT (Georgia) is against them mostly because of what Bielema said.“I don’t want to wear our assistant coaches out any worse than it gets sometimes. I think there needs to be some sanity to our lives and to our schedules and that type of thing. But if we’re allowed to do, we’ll find some way to manage it. Every time we’ve met the majority has been against it. In the past, the majority has been to try to get the NCAA to change the rule. That’s been our first choice. Obviously it hasn’t changed yet. We’ve known about it for awhile, but there hasn’t been enough energy to change it. Maybe this time around w e’ll voice that opinion, but I don’t want to speak for the group yet.”