THE NEXT RECRUITING LOOPHOLE LIKELY TO CLOSE: COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACHES RUNNING CLUB TEAMS
Around this time last year, Eric Phillips wasn't sure he would end up where he is now, signed to play football for the University of Cincinnati. The three-star defensive end was coming off an injury, and he had just had surgery. Few schools were seriously recruiting him at that point.
So when Phillips' high school coach told him the Cincinnati football staff would be holding workouts for a local club team last January, Phillips decided to go. He couldn't do drills or work out, but he could be around the coaches. That proved to be more valuable than he could have imagined.
Relationships formed, especially between Phillips and Bearcats defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman, who pointed out how and what a healthy Phillips could be doing during drills. The coaches visited Phillips at nearby Colerain High School in the spring to see him work out, and they offered him a scholarship. Phillips visited Cincinnati later that month and committed the next day.
"There was a lot of things we had an opportunity to see, and a lot more opportunities for us to have our hands on him, whether it was camp or some other club situations that we had an opportunity to have him in," head coach Luke Fickell said at his December signing period news conference. "We know more about him than probably anybody else in the country, and that probably tells you why we were one of the first guys on him."
How Cincinnati did this is what makes Phillips' recruitment process so notable. Cincinnati, along with Rutgers, found and used a loophole in the NCAA rules to directly evaluate and build relationships with possible recruits in late winter, well ahead of the spring evaluation and summer camp period.
The rules regarding college football coaches and access to prospective student-athletes are complex and hard-and-fast, tied to certain periods of the calendar year. But coaches are always looking for an edge. There was drama over satellite camps a few years ago. Then there was running spring football on the IMG Academy campus.
Club teams became the latest loophole.
NCAA bylaw 13.11.2.4 allows any coach to get involved with or run a club team of prospects, as long as everything tied to it is held off campus and is not affiliated with the university. Prospective players must be within a 50-mile radius of the school, which, based on population density, makes this practice more advantageous for programs in metropolitan areas. The rule was intended to help coaches of non-revenue sports make a little extra income on the side in the summer. Basketball is specifically excluded, in part because of the AAU circuit. Football is not.
Club teams are required to participate in actual organized competition, and local 7-on-7 tournaments fulfill that requirement. And though the players must live within 50 miles of campus, once they make the roster, the entire team can go anywhere to play games. It doesn't appear that Cincinnati or Rutgers went quite so far, preferring instead to stay local for workouts and competitions and aiming to keep the loophole — and its subsequent advantages — as quiet as possible.
"It was helpful because of the area we live in," Rutgers head coach Chris Ash told The Athletic. "There were a lot of players that could participate in our club team, which gave us an opportunity to build relationships, watch kids compete. … It was legal. It was something we figured out how to do. Other sports do it. Football's always been able to do it. Very few people have done it."
Beyond building relationships with the college staff, there are significant benefits for players. They do not have to pay to join the club team. They are allowed to receive gear from coaches and sponsors; the gear simply cannot be paid for by the university's athletic department or feature the school's logo.
As word of the loophole made its way through coaching circles, backlash began.
"I sat in a meeting and heard a coach say, 'We can give them $1,000 worth of gear.' Are you kidding me?" UConn head coach Randy Edsall said. "We allow this stuff to happen and nothing is done with emergency legislation?"
Legislation is likely coming. The NCAA Division I Council will vote on a proposal to exclude football from the club team rule, like basketball. It was put forth by the Football Oversight Committee, and the vote is expected in April. The expectation among coaches is that it will pass and the loophole will close.
For Cincinnati, the idea came from the compliance department. A compliance staffer saw a staffer at another school tweet a hypothetical regarding the bylaw. The rule is well-known in Olympic sport circles, and the department realized it was legal in football. Cincinnati went ahead with it.
The idea began to spread among coaches who are friends or former colleagues. Rutgers checked with its compliance department, got the go-ahead and began creating its own club team. The first step was making sure whatever was used to pay for club team costs — in Rutgers' case, the Chris Ash Football Camp LLC — was not tied to the university or its athletic department, and that funds used for the team were not coming from the university.
Cincinnati's club team workouts took place at the Soccer City sports complex over multiple weeks. Phillips said they featured numerous local prospects. So did Rutgers'. The coaches at both schools were able to work out players, give them gear and spend an unlimited amount of time with them.
Rutgers head coach Chris Ash (Noah K. Murray / USA TODAY Sports)
"It's quite a tool," former Rutgers assistant coach Bill Busch said. "You can actually coach and teach them. It's unbelievable. It's a chance to build relationships, and it's a recruiting tool. At the same time, it's also an incredible time commitment. In a world where coaches don't have time, imagine extra time in February going to do that. It can take a toll on your staff."
Busch left Rutgers for LSU in early February 2018, so he was part of the planning but not the eventual execution of Ash's club team. What helped Rutgers and Cincinnati most was the timing. Their staffs could work out sophomores and juniors months ahead of the summer camp season. They could evaluate their changing bodies. They could talk to prospects in person. They could better determine whether they should offer prospects months ahead of their peers at other schools.
When Sonny Dykes became head coach at SMU a year ago, his director of recruiting brought the idea to him. That person had heard about it from someone who had heard about it at Cincinnati. Dykes couldn't believe it was allowed, but SMU compliance checked, and the Mustangs planned to do it, with possible trips to Las Vegas or Atlanta for tournaments.
"We'd spent a lot of time talking about it, what we'd do." Dykes said. "We were going to 7-on-7 and basically have a Dallas all-stars team."
Boosters were on board to pay for it, but fielding and managing a club program is a lot of work. Some programs that have looked into it determined it wasn't worth the hassle. Eventually, Dykes decided it was too much.
"Theoretically, you could get your camp to sponsor everything, get them a first-class ticket to Atlanta, put them up in the Ritz-Carlton, get them massages, feed them at nice restaurants, buy them nice gear and go coach them for a weekend," Dykes said. "I don't think any of that is against the rule. Am I comfortable doing that? There's no way. As a coaching staff, we decided it's not the intent of the rule, and we're not going to do it."
Other programs that looked into doing it raised complaints about the few programs running club teams in their areas. Edsall likened it to cheating, though it is legal.
"It started in the Northeast more than anyplace else," said Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. "Different regions find different things. They were starting to utilize it. As it's expanded, you have a few different flavors with how this works to stay in the rules."
After receiving complaints and feedback from a number of coaches, Berry took the issue to the NCAA Football Oversight Committee in early 2018. The Southeastern Conference already had a rule prohibiting such non-scholastic football activity by its coaches. At the league's meetings last spring, the conference crafted a national ban proposal, keeping the current bylaw in place, but simply adding football to the excluded sports with basketball, citing the desire to keep things in a scholastic environment.
"Within (the compliance) world, there's always been some comments, but it's flown under the radar," SEC assistant commissioner of compliance Matt Boyer said. "People said, 'Man, that could be a pretty big competitive advantage in football,' but no one's been in a position to operationalize or mobilize it. Over the last year, there were rumblings of some programs in certain areas starting to look at or actually put things in motion. That's where it became more of a realization that we needed to do something sooner than later. It could be a pretty big advantage to be involved with prospects in the way the legislation allows you to in that space."
The Football Oversight Committee sought input from the AFCA. At the coaches convention in early January, it was made clear to Berry that most coaches wanted to close the loophole.
Rutgers shelved plans operate a club program this winter, anticipating the change. Other programs are waiting to see if rules change before laying the groundwork for a possible club team. The opportunity for college football programs to operate them is expected to be eliminated soon before they proliferate, but the competition to find any edge rages on.
"I'm supportive if they're going to eliminate it," Ash said. "If it's legal and you can do it, everyone can do it. If they say it's not legal, I'm all for it. At that time of year, it's important to be around your own players anyway, but certain schools have to do what they can to get a leg up on others."
(Top photo of Luke Fickell by Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Around this time last year, Eric Phillips wasn't sure he would end up where he is now, signed to play football for the University of Cincinnati. The three-star defensive end was coming off an injury, and he had just had surgery. Few schools were seriously recruiting him at that point.
So when Phillips' high school coach told him the Cincinnati football staff would be holding workouts for a local club team last January, Phillips decided to go. He couldn't do drills or work out, but he could be around the coaches. That proved to be more valuable than he could have imagined.
Relationships formed, especially between Phillips and Bearcats defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman, who pointed out how and what a healthy Phillips could be doing during drills. The coaches visited Phillips at nearby Colerain High School in the spring to see him work out, and they offered him a scholarship. Phillips visited Cincinnati later that month and committed the next day.
"There was a lot of things we had an opportunity to see, and a lot more opportunities for us to have our hands on him, whether it was camp or some other club situations that we had an opportunity to have him in," head coach Luke Fickell said at his December signing period news conference. "We know more about him than probably anybody else in the country, and that probably tells you why we were one of the first guys on him."
How Cincinnati did this is what makes Phillips' recruitment process so notable. Cincinnati, along with Rutgers, found and used a loophole in the NCAA rules to directly evaluate and build relationships with possible recruits in late winter, well ahead of the spring evaluation and summer camp period.
The rules regarding college football coaches and access to prospective student-athletes are complex and hard-and-fast, tied to certain periods of the calendar year. But coaches are always looking for an edge. There was drama over satellite camps a few years ago. Then there was running spring football on the IMG Academy campus.
Club teams became the latest loophole.
NCAA bylaw 13.11.2.4 allows any coach to get involved with or run a club team of prospects, as long as everything tied to it is held off campus and is not affiliated with the university. Prospective players must be within a 50-mile radius of the school, which, based on population density, makes this practice more advantageous for programs in metropolitan areas. The rule was intended to help coaches of non-revenue sports make a little extra income on the side in the summer. Basketball is specifically excluded, in part because of the AAU circuit. Football is not.
Club teams are required to participate in actual organized competition, and local 7-on-7 tournaments fulfill that requirement. And though the players must live within 50 miles of campus, once they make the roster, the entire team can go anywhere to play games. It doesn't appear that Cincinnati or Rutgers went quite so far, preferring instead to stay local for workouts and competitions and aiming to keep the loophole — and its subsequent advantages — as quiet as possible.
"It was helpful because of the area we live in," Rutgers head coach Chris Ash told The Athletic. "There were a lot of players that could participate in our club team, which gave us an opportunity to build relationships, watch kids compete. … It was legal. It was something we figured out how to do. Other sports do it. Football's always been able to do it. Very few people have done it."
Beyond building relationships with the college staff, there are significant benefits for players. They do not have to pay to join the club team. They are allowed to receive gear from coaches and sponsors; the gear simply cannot be paid for by the university's athletic department or feature the school's logo.
As word of the loophole made its way through coaching circles, backlash began.
"I sat in a meeting and heard a coach say, 'We can give them $1,000 worth of gear.' Are you kidding me?" UConn head coach Randy Edsall said. "We allow this stuff to happen and nothing is done with emergency legislation?"
Legislation is likely coming. The NCAA Division I Council will vote on a proposal to exclude football from the club team rule, like basketball. It was put forth by the Football Oversight Committee, and the vote is expected in April. The expectation among coaches is that it will pass and the loophole will close.
For Cincinnati, the idea came from the compliance department. A compliance staffer saw a staffer at another school tweet a hypothetical regarding the bylaw. The rule is well-known in Olympic sport circles, and the department realized it was legal in football. Cincinnati went ahead with it.
The idea began to spread among coaches who are friends or former colleagues. Rutgers checked with its compliance department, got the go-ahead and began creating its own club team. The first step was making sure whatever was used to pay for club team costs — in Rutgers' case, the Chris Ash Football Camp LLC — was not tied to the university or its athletic department, and that funds used for the team were not coming from the university.
Cincinnati's club team workouts took place at the Soccer City sports complex over multiple weeks. Phillips said they featured numerous local prospects. So did Rutgers'. The coaches at both schools were able to work out players, give them gear and spend an unlimited amount of time with them.
Rutgers head coach Chris Ash (Noah K. Murray / USA TODAY Sports)
"It's quite a tool," former Rutgers assistant coach Bill Busch said. "You can actually coach and teach them. It's unbelievable. It's a chance to build relationships, and it's a recruiting tool. At the same time, it's also an incredible time commitment. In a world where coaches don't have time, imagine extra time in February going to do that. It can take a toll on your staff."
Busch left Rutgers for LSU in early February 2018, so he was part of the planning but not the eventual execution of Ash's club team. What helped Rutgers and Cincinnati most was the timing. Their staffs could work out sophomores and juniors months ahead of the summer camp season. They could evaluate their changing bodies. They could talk to prospects in person. They could better determine whether they should offer prospects months ahead of their peers at other schools.
When Sonny Dykes became head coach at SMU a year ago, his director of recruiting brought the idea to him. That person had heard about it from someone who had heard about it at Cincinnati. Dykes couldn't believe it was allowed, but SMU compliance checked, and the Mustangs planned to do it, with possible trips to Las Vegas or Atlanta for tournaments.
"We'd spent a lot of time talking about it, what we'd do." Dykes said. "We were going to 7-on-7 and basically have a Dallas all-stars team."
Boosters were on board to pay for it, but fielding and managing a club program is a lot of work. Some programs that have looked into it determined it wasn't worth the hassle. Eventually, Dykes decided it was too much.
"Theoretically, you could get your camp to sponsor everything, get them a first-class ticket to Atlanta, put them up in the Ritz-Carlton, get them massages, feed them at nice restaurants, buy them nice gear and go coach them for a weekend," Dykes said. "I don't think any of that is against the rule. Am I comfortable doing that? There's no way. As a coaching staff, we decided it's not the intent of the rule, and we're not going to do it."
Other programs that looked into doing it raised complaints about the few programs running club teams in their areas. Edsall likened it to cheating, though it is legal.
"It started in the Northeast more than anyplace else," said Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. "Different regions find different things. They were starting to utilize it. As it's expanded, you have a few different flavors with how this works to stay in the rules."
After receiving complaints and feedback from a number of coaches, Berry took the issue to the NCAA Football Oversight Committee in early 2018. The Southeastern Conference already had a rule prohibiting such non-scholastic football activity by its coaches. At the league's meetings last spring, the conference crafted a national ban proposal, keeping the current bylaw in place, but simply adding football to the excluded sports with basketball, citing the desire to keep things in a scholastic environment.
"Within (the compliance) world, there's always been some comments, but it's flown under the radar," SEC assistant commissioner of compliance Matt Boyer said. "People said, 'Man, that could be a pretty big competitive advantage in football,' but no one's been in a position to operationalize or mobilize it. Over the last year, there were rumblings of some programs in certain areas starting to look at or actually put things in motion. That's where it became more of a realization that we needed to do something sooner than later. It could be a pretty big advantage to be involved with prospects in the way the legislation allows you to in that space."
The Football Oversight Committee sought input from the AFCA. At the coaches convention in early January, it was made clear to Berry that most coaches wanted to close the loophole.
Rutgers shelved plans operate a club program this winter, anticipating the change. Other programs are waiting to see if rules change before laying the groundwork for a possible club team. The opportunity for college football programs to operate them is expected to be eliminated soon before they proliferate, but the competition to find any edge rages on.
"I'm supportive if they're going to eliminate it," Ash said. "If it's legal and you can do it, everyone can do it. If they say it's not legal, I'm all for it. At that time of year, it's important to be around your own players anyway, but certain schools have to do what they can to get a leg up on others."
(Top photo of Luke Fickell by Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
