We fought the Great Satellite War of 2016 for this?
According to documents from Conference USA's spring meetings by Harry Minium of the Virginian-Pilot, the NCAA is considering standardizing satellite camps by perhaps partnering with the NFL to host them at training centers and select high schools. The report does not say how this would come about or which training centers would be used.
The NCAA would also mandate recruiting and academic counseling at the camps, and may cover travel for low-income athletes. Should that proposal fail, the NCAA is considering shortening the acceptable satellite camp window from 30 to 10 days.
Either way, it appears Jim Harbaugh's tour across the Western hemisphere won't happen again in 2017.
Other changes currently being tossed around the inner workings of the NCAA, according to the documents:
- Allowing seniors to sign National Letters of Intent beginning August 1, thereby eliminating the first Wednesday in February as a sport-wide holiday. One proposal would include language to get players out of their scholarships in the event of a coaching change.
- Allowing schools to pay for official visits during the summer of a player's senior year.
- Allowing FBS schools to hire an assistant who would "mentor players and help them adjust socially and academically." Minium writes that "might" bump the staff limit to 10, but that would "likely" cause schools to lose a graduate assistant. (A prediction: if the latter is required, the former does not pass.)
- Limiting or banning incoming freshman from enrolling early.
- Requiring schools to count non-qualifiers who sign scholarship papers to count against the 85-man limit.
It remains to be seen if any of these proposals will actually reach the voting stage, but if so they could have major changes on the way FBS staffs do business.