Hours before the NCAA football recruiting dead period came to a close on Wednesday night, college football coaches that make up the American Football Coaches Association agreed on four new proposals for the 2017 season.
While they all still have to be approved by athletic directors, school presidents and the NCAA in April, the train has left the station at the convention in Nashville, Tenn., and it appears all will be eventually passed.
One of those was to add a 10th assistant coach to the staff -- and the coaches hope this will go in effect by April -- which obviously will allow some more tutelage to facets of a football program that may have not been getting enough.
Some coaches will no doubt use that as a special teams coordinator, others will use it to shore up positions, aid in recruiting and leave the coordinators less to do.
"The student-to-coach ratio is the lowest of any NCAA sport," noted AFCA executive director Todd Berry, the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe. "This is the one that on most campuses is generally the most high-profile sport. That's probably not right for our student-athletes, so this is a student-athlete welfare issue, we feel."
Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema is certainly on board with it as he noted at a December press conference.
"There's a chance we may have 10 coaches next year, which would bring a strong change in college football," Bielema said. "There's a lot of different directions it could go. It sounds like there is a very strong possibility that going to pass.
And it could be even immediate in the spring, if not for sure by next fall."
Skip Holtz, a Fayetteville High graduate and current Louisiana Tech head coach, is also very much in favor of it.
"The 10th coach is huge," Holtz told The News-Star. "Right now our coach-to-player ratio with as many players as we have, I think it will definitely help. It will help monitor academics, staying on top of them. It will make a safer and a better product on the field. I think the 10th coach is needed, I really do."
Another point was the unanimous approval of an early signing period the third Wednesday in December that would allow spring recruits to sign a national letter of intent just as early enrollees.
Bielema has also been in favor of a June signing period, but Berry said there was "zero support" for an early signing period in June.
Berry said that was in part because coaches had "major concerns about June" such as not having enough academic information and the thought that some kids might skip their senior season.
Yet another proposal would allow a player to play in four games per season -- at any point during the season -- and still be able to redshirt.
The current rule is a player cannot redshirt if he plays at all during the year, with the exception of sustaining a season-ending injury during the first 30 percent of the season or three games, whichever is greater.
Such a change would allow true freshmen to get snaps during the season, in bowls or non-conference games without losing a year of eligibility.
"Little Johnny, he's not ready to play," Berry said. "But Little Johnny's mom and dad are in the stands. Every data point says when a kid is engaged in football during his collegiate years, the better he does academically, the better he does socially," Berry told CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd.
"You got a chance to put Little Johnny out there at the close of a ball game. So what? That shouldn't burn his eligibility. If Little Johnny goes out and doesn't play in the first five games because he wasn't ready to play and then all the sudden you stick him out there in the sixth game of the season and he tears his knee up and is gone for the season, he's burned his eligibility. That is not fair to Little Johnny."
The coaches also condemned playing any games on Friday night because it cuts into seeing recruits play on that night.
Sports on 01/12/2017