The number of staff members within a program and those who can coach and instruct players is reportedly up for consideration.
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee met via videoconference March 15 and discussed a number of informational items, and the first on the list being the “limit on the number of coaches and off-campus recruiters.”
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According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports, the committee is weighing “permitting all staff members to provide players skill and tactical coaching instruction” both in-game and during practice. This topic is up for reconsideration for a second-straight year and didn’t get approval last year.
“The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee (FBSOC)
introduced legislation into the pilot legislative process to permit any institutional staff
member to provide technical or tactical instruction related to football to a student-athlete
at any time,” the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee report on the March 15 videoconference states. “The legislation maintains the limit of 11 countable coaches that may recruit off-campus and does not remove the graduate student coaches or individual associated with a prospective student-athlete legislation. The FBSOC will consider membership feedback received during the March 28 – May 11 initial feedback/comment period and vote during the week of May 12 on whether to adopt the legislation, subject to NCAA Division I Council action on June 25-26. If adopted, the legislation would be effective immediately.”
The committee issued a legislative proposal regarding the topic, and if passed, the new ruling “eliminates the policy limiting coaching instruction to only the NCAA’s maximum of 11 “countable” coaches: the 10 assistants and head coach,” according to Yahoo! Sports.
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Also, the new legislation “strictly maintains the number of off-campus recruiters to 11, but gives flexibility to head coaches to potentially designate any 10 staff members as ‘countable’ coaches who are eligible to recruit off-campus,” according to Yahoo! Sports.
College football teams have large support staffs in addition to the coaches who oversee each position group. The key difference is that there is an 11-coach count pertaining to those who can recruit student-athletes off campus.
In the new legislation, all staff members could coach players and would have an increased role than before. Perhaps team can utilize analysts and quality control coaches in more areas.
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For the next six weeks, the oversight committee will enter a period of “membership feedback” and commentary on the proposal. It will meet again in mid-May to further evaluate whether the proposal will go into adoption.
The American Football Coaches Association endorses the proposal, according to Yahoo! Sports.
