Mel Tucker unsure how new recruiting rules will impact calendar

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker recently spoke about the new recruiting rules, explaining why they may not have a huge impact on recruiting while admitting that he needs more time to know for sure.

In particular, Tucker explained that the new rules surrounding official visits, allowing recruits to take more than five. On the surface, it would seem like this could be a major change for coaches, as they should hypothetically be able to bring in more recruits while recruits are able to see more campuses. However, Tucker doesn’t know for sure that this will happen.

“I don’t know how that changes things for us right now,” Mel Tucker said. “It remains to be seen. Probably ask me a year from now.”

An official visit is when the school is paying for the visit. That differs from an unofficial visit, which is paid for by the athlete or the athlete’s family. Until April of 2023, there was a maximum of five official visits given to each recruit. Now, with a rule change, they have unlimited visits.

However, as Mel Tucker explained, there are plenty of recruits who still won’t be able to attend more than five official visits.

“Some of these guys have a hard time squeezing five in, you know, based on how many sports they play and when they want to make a decision. There’s a lot of players who want to make a decision before they start their senior season before they even start camp,” Tucker said.

“So, we’ll have to see. That’s new and it’s not been a real big topic of discussion with the recruits and their parents so far.”

The rule went into effect on July 1, 2023.

How recruiting departments are handling new official visit rules

Recruiting departments are trying to get a handle on these new rules as quickly as possible. These changes can be difficult to navigate, though, and it has left plenty of employees upset.

On3’s Matt Zenitz spoke to several college staffers in several different conferences who shared their thoughts on the new rule with him.

“I hate it,” said one SEC staffer. “I think every single person in college football that I’ve talked to hates it. Now that kids have unlimited visits, who’s to know what school this kid is really interested in. The kid could go all the way til’ Signing Day now and just take free trips everywhere.”

A Big Ten staffer had similar thoughts, lamenting how these rule changes are decided.

“It’s a ridiculous rule. And it further shows that there’s nobody who works in football that sits on these committees. It’s all compliance people. … I think if you surveyed 100 people, 99 would say the rule is stupid. They form all these committees with all compliance people. There’s zero people who sit on these committees that directly work in football.”

Another Big Ten staffer explained that it’s not really unlimited official visits, as the schools themselves are limited to 56 official visits.

“I think it’s just another rule where the recruits and high school coaches probably find this as being awesome, but they truly don’t understand and grasp the concept of OK, just because it’s unlimited for you doesn’t mean we’re unlimited. We’re still in handcuffs and can only OV 56. So we’re still going to have to tell you if you can or can’t OV to us.”

Ultimately, the staffers don’t expect the process to change a ton. After all, they don’t want to waste time on a kid who isn’t really interested. However, there is concern that the rule could change the importance of unofficial visits.