New D1 Baseball Recruiting Model - New Rules - New Landscape

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we are talking about the new NCAA Division 1 baseball recruiting model and the rule changes that the NCAA has put into effect this past week. And in my opinion, is very healthy for the game. It is very healthy for the high school baseball athlete and his family. I think that's most important. I think it's healthy for high school baseball in general. I think it's healthy for college, college baseball. I think it's healthy for these college coaches as well. And in order for us to kind of dive into and understand these new baseball rules, which I'm going to get into, it's important to understand. All right. What was happening in the past and what were the rules in the past. So let's talk about this before these new rules have come into effect. Before that, college coaches couldn't initiate contact with high school baseball players until September 1st of their junior year. But the key thing to that is the college coach couldn't initiate the communication, but the player could. And once the player did, from. They could text them, they could call them. It was free game from a recruiting standpoint. Offers, scholarship, all that from a recruiting standpoint was free game. Unofficial visits could happen before that as well. So eighth grade, freshman year, early in the sophomore year, there was offers and unofficial visits happening all the time. You guys were probably. You guys saw this, and if you're new to this, this is what was happening, is you saw really early commitments happening. That in my opinion, was just getting wild. It was getting out of hand. I mean, this is where it gets into asking a kid, especially like in eighth grade, in some instances, seventh grade, asking a kid, frankly, a kid to make a huge decision, which I think choosing a college is one of the biggest decisions you'll make, especially early in your life. Make almost pressuring them, because there's some coaches that would. But there's a pressure to it. When you get an offer, there's a pressure to say yes. Because a lot of these people, families, and a lot of these players, when they get an offer, they almost feel pressured to say yes because of what could happen and things like that. Not everybody does. And I advise a lot of people just to wait, sit and sit on it. You don't need to make this decision that early, but they would be pressured. And that's where you saw these early commitments happening. And, you know, to. To the college coaches to kind of defend them a little bit. A lot of them didn't want to necessarily do it, but it was keeping up with the Joneses, frankly, it was keeping up with the other schools that were happening and making offers that they felt like they had to stay up and not miss baseball players, not miss good high school players or they were going to lose them. Right? They couldn't sit there and necessarily watch them a little bit more and see if this was a really good decision. And this is where it happens, where over recruitment has happened. And this is going to prevent at least some of that as we go through it. So what was happening is there was these loopholes, right? There was these loopholes where offers could happen, communication could happen between the college coaches and the high school players. And now that is closed. So you could basically, you could have pretty much open communication whenever you wanted to, as long as the player initiated the contact. And also unofficial visits could happen. Offers could happen before September 1st of their junior year. Okay? That was the big things that were happening in the past and why, you know, these early commitments, I think a lot of people started to see like, this is, this is too much. Again, asking a kid and their family to make that big decision that early, four or five, sometimes six, six years before they were going to a school was pretty crazy. It was pretty crazy. Okay? Now the new rule is college coaches cannot communicate, have any communication with the player, and cannot offer the player until August 1st after their sophomore year. So going into your junior year, August 1st going into your junior year. So most kids will not have started school yet, but so August 1st, going into the junior year, they cannot have communication with the college coach unless it's at camps, but they cannot talk recruiting and. Or they cannot offer players until then. So that loophole of the student athlete communicating with the coach before that, before September 1st, before the old rule, that is closed now, College coaches cannot communicate with the player, cannot communicate with the parents, cannot communicate with college coaches, recruiters, anything like that, travel ball coaches, they cannot communicate until August 1st of their going into their junior year. Okay? Again, this is very, very healthy. Now, the fact of the matter is, does it mean that college coaches are not, you might be asking yourself, well, they're not. Are they even recruiting before then? The big schools, they're going to definitely be watching players. There's no question about that. Get on radars, right? Get them on their boards, their watch list, their possible interest list to get them to camps. So this is kind of a small loophole that's going to happen is you can talk to a player in high school that is a freshman or sophomore before August 1st, if it's at your camp, if it's at your school camp and. Or showcase. So that is kind of the loophole. But still, you can't offer them before that. So there's going to be college coaches that are going to probably express interest in ways, but again, they cannot offer until August 1st. And then the other rule that has come into effect is college coaches can. Cannot communicate. Okay. Excuse me, Cannot bring them on campus until September 1st after the junior year. So one month after that, they still, even at August 1st, you can't go on campus until September 1st. So September 1st they're able to bring you on an official visit and then thereafter, official visits. And you're going to be able to take as many official visits as you want. That's a new rule coming into effect as well. So what's the difference between an unofficial visit and an official visit? An unofficial visit is you pay your way to get to the school. You're going to pay your expenses. Official visit, okay, Is the college coaches, their program, baseball program, and obviously we're talking about baseball. They pay all expenses. They pay for your hotel, they pay for your travel, they pay for your food. And that's a big deal going forward. But that will not happen until September 1st going into or probably starting your junior year then. So those are the big changes. Let me make sure I covered everything. I think I did. I think that. So, yes, again, no communication. So players cannot call, can, cannot text college coaches before August 1st of their junior year now and again. So what does this mean, right? What are the benefits of this? This benefits taking pressure off the high school baseball player and their parents, frankly, to not make a decision that early and to frankly focus on development and focus on, hey, not playing baseball 12 months out of the year. I mean, this is what I do for a living, baseball. But it is. I'm a big advocate of taking breaks playing other sports. I think that's really, really important going forward. So the benefits of it allows guys to develop. Right. Especially the guys that aren't 6 2, throwing 90 miles an hour freshman year to develop more. Right. And not feel so pressured that I have to be ready now. No, you just need to be ready going into your junior year. And just because maybe you don't get an offer August 1st doesn't mean you're not going to get an offer. It is going to be yet to be seen how Wild it gets August 1st going into September and the rest of the year of your junior year, it's going to be pretty wild from there. So this is all new. We're all kind of learning, and we're going to see how this plays out, frankly, as we go through this process. But I wanted to update you guys and hopefully explain that to you, too. The biggest takeaways is college coaches are now ultra limited on their communication from a recruiting standpoint and cannot offer this is the biggest one, cannot offer high school baseball players until August 1st going into their junior year. And hope you got something from this. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division I college coach, scout and recruiter. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process. If you got anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up and we will go from there. I'll see you in the next video. Take care. Bye.