Ohio State: What is allowed on an official visit versus unofficial visit?
Have a question about Ohio State recruiting? This is the place for you, five days a week. Submit your questions on Twitter or on the Lettermen Row forums. Check-in daily to see what’s on the mind of Buckeyes fans all over the country. Friday’s question asks about the difference between an official visit and an unofficial visit and what recruits are permitted to do on them.
Ohio State Recruiting Question of the Day
What can happen on unofficial visits vs official visits? My wife asked me the difference and I couldn’t answer intelligently
— Tony Mamais ⭐️⭐️ (@MamaisTony) September 16, 2019
I think it’s great that every so often we break away from the “what’s going on with this player” discussion and instead turn our focus to the generalities of college football recruiting because I, personally, just freaking love college football recruiting.
I love nuance. I love the ins and outs of relationship building and you know what? I even love bureaucratic red tape and there’s nothing the NCAA is better at than red tape.
Right?
So, Tony, as I’m here to help soothe your own relationship, please allow me the chance to bridge the gap of knowledge and curiosity between you and your wife. Let’s start with the most basic and simple answer for your question: when it comes to an official visit, the school being visited by a prospect and his family can pay for the visit by a prospect and his family. These visits are 48 hours long and that clock starts from the time the player and his family hit campus.
When Gee Scott, for example, made his official visit to Ohio State over the weekend of Aug. 31 — when the Buckeyes hosted FAU — the school was able to pay for his flight and the flight of his father and, for 48 hours, pay for three meals per day and lodging on campus. Plus three game tickets for an Ohio State football game and some of the best seats in Ohio Stadium.
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Recruits are permitted a total of five official visits that can be taken between April of their junior year of high school through February of their senior year. Unofficial visits are not limited by quantity but outside of game tickets — three per contest — the school can pay for no part of the visit: no transportation, no food, no lodging paid for by the school, etc.
As Ohio State prepares for its third game of the 2019 season this weekend, the Buckeyes are hosting just two visitors officially and that means Ryan Watts III — an Oklahoma commit — and Ohio State verbal Mookie Cooper are absorbing two of the 62 official visits that Ryan Day’s program can offer during this recruiting cycle. In most years, the Buckeyes don’t come close to that number but it’s nice to know they’re there if needed.
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