STARKVILLE — The college baseball recruiting timeline just got more compact.
On Wednesday, the NCAA’s Division I Council approved new recruiting legislation supported by its Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. The biggest change for baseball recruiting is alterations to scheduling visits. Before, prospects could unofficially visit anytime but only take official visits after their first day of class as a senior; now, they cannot take visits of any kind, official or unofficial, before their junior year but can do both on Sept. 1 of their junior year.
It effectively keeps schools from seriously recruiting players before Sept. 1 of their junior year, but it does grant players more time take visits, thus schools more time to entertain more prospects.
“These changes will improve the recruiting experience for prospective student-athletes and coaches and lead to better decision-making,” Blake James, the Council chair and athletic director at Miami, said in a NCAA statement. “Ultimately, a better recruiting process will improve the college experience for Division I student-athletes.”
In the preseason, MSU was racking up commitments from high school freshmen and sophomores; under these new rules, that’s very unlikely to happen, but MSU interim coach Gary Henderson doesn’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.
“Anything we can do to delay it — and, again, these are my thoughts — but anything we can do to increase accountability on the schools and the athletes and delay the decision would probably be a really good thing for college baseball,” Henderson said. “Anything you can do to delay the process and make a decision a decision, in my opinion, would be a good thing.”
Outside of recruiting, the NCAA also approved a rule allowing schools to play two fall games against another school that don’t count against the 56-game regular season limit. In the past, schools could play them but they would count against their 56-game total, yet the results would not count toward their NCAA tournament selection resume.
“Anything like that would be positive in my mind,” Henderson said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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