It's scheduled during Bowl season to prevent non-bowl teams from gaining an advantage on bowl-eligible programs that have practices, traveling, and games to consume their time.
During the Dead Period, a coach may contact a recruit and his parents once per week via phone or letter. Every coach on a school's staff can do this, which means one recruit could be contacted 20 times from the same school during the same week - so, it's not as bad as it sounds. A coach can, also, make offers during the DP and players can commit.
What is not allowed is any face-2-face meeting between any coach and a player or his parents. This holds for early enrollees who have signed LOI's as well. So, Boyd, Buechele, and Johnson who have signed their LOI's, enrolled, and moved into their dorms may not see/visit any of our coaches until this Friday at 12:01 AM.