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Last week, an NCAA decision to prohibit coaches from subscribing to recruiting Web sites like Rivals.com and Scout.com came to light. On the surface, the issue appears to be that these sites offer access to video from non-scholastic competition, such as all-star games, camps, and 7-on-7 football events. This runs afoul of a 2009 NCAA rules interpretation that limits coaches to video services that only have footage of high school or two-year collegiate competition, unless that footage "is available to the general public, provided there is no subscription fee or other associated fee required to observe the video."

One obvious workaround for these sites is to open up access to non-scholastic material to everyone, which at least one site says it had already been doing.
Some coaches say the rule will have little effect on the way they recruit.

"It's not going to affect me, I'm going to recruit the way I always have," University of Minnesota Football Coach Jerry Kill told The Minnesota Daily. "I've been working long before this stuff was invented. If something is legal and can benefit us, we'll use it."

If the NCAA issued an interpretation in 2009, why is this making such a splash now? Some see a connection to the controversy surrounding a $25,000 payment the University of Oregon made to a Texas-based recruiting service operated by a man with connection to two Oregon players. College football blogger David Wunderlich commented:

This is big news because it shows that the NCAA is wasting little time in evaluating what constitutes a scouting service in the wake of the Will Lyles scandal at Oregon. It also matters because it's no secret that many, if not all, programs use services like Rivals and Scout to some degree in their recruiting regimens. They all say that they don't count stars and things like that, but they do at least use the film that those sites provide.

There has also been speculation that the underlying goal extends beyond prohibiting coaches from viewing video of athletes competing outside the high school arena.
Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News opined:

"Perhaps this represents how badly the NCAA wants to eliminate 7-on-7 summer football, which has been inundated with third parties and street agents. These 7-on-7 camps are becoming football's AAU basketball."

Solomon also noted the irony of coaches now possibly having to tell the NCAA they subscribed to these sites.

"The result is the oddity of some coaches being told to report a secondary violation if they have ever subscribed to sites such as Rivals. You know, the same recruiting services many coaches have long insisted they don't use to evaluate or land players."

Others have raised a bigger question: Should the NCAA continue its policy of trying to make high school sports the preferred path towards intercollegiate competition? John Infante, Assistant Director of Compliance at Loyola Marymount University and author of the NCAA By Law Blog, says no, it shouldn't.

"The NCAA should let go of high school athletics as the primary way prospects prepare themselves for intercollegiate competition. The entire of Bylaw 13 should be scrapped and rebuilt, reflecting the new reality that non-scholastic sports have overtaken high school sports in recruiting. This includes rethinking recruiting calendars to the non-scholastic schedule, changing contact rules to counter the influence of third parties, and altering inducement regulations to reflect the payoffs and under the table deals prevalent in club sports.

And by focusing on non-scholastic sports, the NCAA can become a force to improve them. Preference in recruiting calendars could be given to leagues and organizations that operate according to certain standards. iHoops could spawn a rival to the AAU circuit for talent and development that surpasses it in transparency. And 7-on-7 football could be built in the image of what the NCAA would prefer and what college coaches need, not in image of grassroots organizers and investors.

Dennis Read is an Associate Editor at Athletic Management.