Muschamp speaks on deregulating text messages

By Adam Silverstein
February 11, 2013

Among other parts of a reform package announced as approved by the NCAA in late January, the organization’s Board of Directors decided to deregulate the amount of contact that college coaching staffs can make with recruits via text messages or other messages through forms of social media.

Florida Gators head coach Will Muschamp, who had previously made note of his displeasure with the unlimited messaging decision in passing, said Friday on 740 The Game in Orlando, FL that he is against that portion of the recruiting reform package as he currently understands it.

“There’s a reason why we stopped texting a while back and that was because of the high school young man sitting in class getting a text,” he said. “Some schools will just hire guys but all they do is text all day and text the recruits saying it’s the head coach or whoever. We’re not going to do that, but that’s what a lot of schools will do. I do think we need to go back and look at it.”

Indeed, the NCAA’s Board of Directors has also decided that football programs can hire a recruiting coordinator and recruiting assistants that do not technically count as members of the team’s coaching staff.

“I think the NCAA is trying to push back on the university to regulate, and unfortunately when you’re not under the same governing body as far as following the rules, then you’re going to have some things that are going to make it difficult on everybody else,” Muschamp continued. “I would like to go back and study it a little bit more before I ever make a comment but there’s a reason we stopped texting recruits back in ’05 or ’06 or something like that – because of the time and the money it cost some of the recruits.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Well, he just needs to tell the school, ‘No.’’ It’s very difficult for some of these young men to tell somebody ‘no.’ It’s hard, and some schools don’t take ‘no’ very easily as well. I think we do need to go back and look at it and I think it’s going to make things much more difficult.”

Muschamp also gave his support to the concept of an early signing day and how it could help recruits avoid the immense stress that is put on them during the final month of the process from coaches trying to sway decisions at the last minute.

“I do think that an early signing day would help. I do think that would certainly help and take some of the pressure off [that] some of these kids face through the month of January,” he said. “When that signing date [would be], I don’t know. That’s where I think we’re going to have a hard time coming to an agreement on that.”

3 Comments

  1. Joe says:

    I hope Foley has Zook on speed dial, he would be the perfect recruiting coordinator for UF.

  2. GIGator says:

    Joe,

    I doubt Zook is going to come back to UF, in such a position, after being fired. It would be a great move, though!

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