Satellite camps have dominated the offseason college football headlines of late. Could a permanent solution be in the works?
It was only a matter of time before the NCAA took steps toward bringing some sort of structure to the satellite camp experience. After overturning a rash decision by the Division 1 Council earlier this spring that would have banned the practice of attending satellite camps, the NCAA may be preparing to consider taking over the whole process by teaming up with the NFL, of all organizations.
The premise is fairly simple. Rather than allow coaches to run wild in the month of June, the NCAA will trim down what a coach may or may not do and limit how many camps they may attend. They could also organize camps at NFL facilities in a joint partnership with the NFL that would see camps held at NFL training facilities or at high schools. According to a report from The Virginian-Pilot, the NCAA could also consider cutting the window for coaches to attend satellite camps down to just 10 days. That should sit well with coaches like Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.
There are some other areas of concern for the NCAA likely to be addressed. For starters, the NCAA may mandate certain guidelines for camps in terms of academic counsel and recruiting counseling. That’s fair enough. If the camps are to be a recruiting tool, we might as well see them educating players on the best recruiting lessons possible. Early signing periods are also under discussion, among other potential rules changes. And regulating what can and cannot happen at camps should put many coaches (and administrators) at some ease.
There are a few problems with this idea. For starters, it could end up hurting the smaller school programs that have benefitted from the satellite camps the most. Sure, we get carried away tracking Jim Harbaugh’s satellite camp tour, but the schools benefitting more from this type of exposure are the schools like Georgia State and Texas State and programs from the Group of Five that lack the facilities and amenities the big money schools have. If the NCAA takes the satellite camp opportunities away from those schools, they could lose out on some of the benefits in the process, not to mention the possible missed opportunities for student-athletes. Remember that not every high school football player lives right next to an NFL franchise, so sometimes traveling to a Group of Five program is actually the best or only option.
But it remains to be seen just how far this satellite camp reform will go, but this is a topic that will be widely discussed and argued over the course of the next year, until the NCAA puts any reform measures to an official vote.
