New recruiting rules could cramp the Ducks style

From the Associated Press, the NCAA just announced several key revisions in rules governing recruiting, in effect for the remainder of this cycle:

Allowing football players to participate in eight hours per week of required weight training and conditioning. Up to two of the eight hours can consist of film review.

• – Prohibiting school staff members from attending all-star games or activities associated with those games.
• – Establishing an extended dead period when no in-person recruiting can take place in December and January. For 2013-14, Dec. 16 through Jan. 15 is now a dead period.
• – Establishing a 14-day dead period in late June and early July for FBS schools.
• – Allowing schools to pay for meals for up to four family members who accompany a recruit on an official visit.

In other business, the board asked the Leadership Council to study whether heavy reliance on online courses is appropriate for student-athletes.

Diamond head in the rough: The Ducks found Marcus Mariota at a summer camp in 2010, but mining for talent just got harder with new NCAA rules (oregonlive.com photo).

Most significant for Oregon is the extension of the post-season dead period. The Ducks typically make a late-season push in recruiting and have relied heavily in those weeks after the season to ramp up staff visits and contact with coaches, prospects and their parents.

The move gives a futher advantage to traditional powers in recruiting hotbeds. Schools like Texas and Florida hold spring junior days and camps where they can reel in 12-20 coveted recruits at a time.

In the rainy Northwest where football talent is more scarce, the Ducks have to range all over the West, and increasingly all over the country, to find players for the aggressive, innovative, blur-fast Oregon attack and swarming defense.