How Is COVID-19 Affecting Football Recruiting?
Sports across the board are on hold right now as the nation works through the conronavirus pandemic that has gripped the world over the last few weeks, but college football recruiting hasn’t stopped.
Some aspects of it has slowed. Prospects can’t visit schools and coaches cannot get on the road and see the players. In-person meetings are a no-no for the foreseeable future. But, coaches can call, text and email the players and they can facetime and Zoom with the coaches.
So as for now, that’s how North Carolina and the recruiting world are navigating through this process.
“I thought what an awful time for this for all of us and how selfish of me to think, I'm missing spring practice...,” Brown said. “We had so much momentum going in recruiting and we don't need to slow down now. And we've got all these new facilities going and wanted to show them to recruits and we had so many people set up to come in.”
Yet, many of Carolina’s top targets have already been to Chapel Hill multiple times and long ago established relationships with the Tar Heels’ coaches. So, no games are being played, but kids are still committing.
Two popped for the Tar Heels within a week after everything was shut down.
“And then about the time I thought that we weren't going to be able to keep our momentum in recruiting, we have (two) guys commit in a day-and-a-half period,” Brown said. “I had to space them out and say, ‘well, let everybody have their own day so they can announce it.’
In March alone, UNC has received six commitments and the class of 2021 is now 11 deep. Ten of the commits are from North Carolina, including DeAndre Boykins and Tymir Brown, both of whom pledged for the Tar Heels last week. The class is currently ranked No. 4 in the nation.
Also aiding UNC during this challenging time is that the recruiting footprint is from the Washington, D.C., area north to metro Atlanta south, with some effort made in Florida. D.C. is a four-hour drive from Chapel Hill and Atlanta is a six-hour drive.
“We're really close to home with everybody that we're talking to,” Brown said. “And when you recruit that close to home and you have a crisis like this, I think parents really would rather their kids stay close to home. So, if something comes up, they can get home more easily. And so I think that's an advantage for us.”
Most people are adhering to requests by government officials to self-quarantine, but that doesn’t mean it’s supremely easy to reach the players. Times are testy and attentions can be drawn in other areas.
Thus, that UNC hasn’t exactly cast a wide net on the trail is working to its advantage even more right now.
“The other thing is we don't recruit that many guys,” Carolina’s coach said. “We look at who we want and what we want. We're really heavily recruiting in the state. So a lot of people are still recruiting a hundred guys. We're recruiting 30 to try to get 20.
“And so that helps us, I feel like, because we're so involved on a day-to-day basis with these kids that we have a lot more communication with them. So, I do feel like that the recruiting is going to be okay. It may slow down some guys.”
So far, the early returns for UNC on the recruiting trail have been very positive, before the crisis and during.