NCAA ends dead period & adopts new transfer legislation

The NCAA's Division I Council officially announced Thursday that the recruiting dead period that has been in place since March 2020 will come to an end June 1. The dead period, which restricted all in person contact but still allowed communication electronically, had been in place for all Division I sports.

“We are delighted to announce that as of June 1, all sports will return to their normal recruiting calendars,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Pennsylvania. “We want to thank all prospective student-athletes, their families, coaches and current student-athletes for their patience as we determined the best way to move forward safely with recruiting in Division I.”

For Penn State football, this will assure that all of those official visits that they've been scheduling for weeks now will take place over a four-week span in June. The NCAA also announced that there will be no changes to the recruiting calendar, which means the regularly scheduled midsummer dead period, which runs from June 28 to July 24, will still be in play.

Two other notable changes surround evaluations. Now, all prospects that take an unofficial in June and July 2021 will be allowed to workout with members of the staff. Then, in the fall, coaches will be allowed to hit the road to scout for a total of 56 days between September and November. Normally, that number is 42.

In addition to recruiting, the council announced a major change in regards to transfers, as now every player in every Division I sport will be allowed to transfer one-time without penalty, allowing them to play right away. This has already been the case for most olympic sports, but now football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and men's hockey are all subject to the same rule.

*******

• Talk about this article inside The Lions Den

• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue-White Illustrated

• Follow us on Twitter: @BWIonRivals, @NateBauerBWI, @RivalsSnyder, @DavidEckert98

• Follow us on Instagram

• Like us on Facebook