Text Messaging Recruits Ban Wins

Oops. Forgot to include the ban on text messaging recruits in this morning's links. There's an exhaustive look at the ban here. ... Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News wasn't sure about the initiative but now thinks it is a good idea. From DeCourcy's column:

There are reasons to be concerned ... when coaches are heading to practice or other engagements and leaving their phones in the office so grad assistants and administrative types can use them to text recruits.

What DeCourcy may not know (and many coaches might not) is that it doesn't have to be a GA sitting in a corner pecking away on a phone sending one message at a time. It's a relatively simple process to plop yourself down at the computer and send text messages. Which means, of course, that if your GA happens to be computer savvy, you could probably send text messages to as many recruits as you want, as frequently as you want, automatically while playing 18 holes at the local country club.

A Wednesday Sports Illustrated.com column by Stewart Mandel takes a shot at the Ivy League for proposing the ban. From that column:

Take a guess which conference initially sponsored this controversial piece of legislation that could drastically impact recruiting methods at the highest level of college football. The Big Ten? Nope. The SEC? Nada. Try the Ivy League.

That's right, folks. In the bizarre, convoluted process that is NCAA rule-making, a non-scholarship, Division I-AA conference can dictate legislation for the nation's biggest football programs.

While Mandel makes some valid points, his reference to a "Division I-AA conference" illustrates why the NCAA changed nomenclature with regard to the football divisions, and the fact that the name change hasn't taken hold.

First, there's never been any such thing as a "Division I-AA conference." Division I-AA is about football only. The NCAA made the FBS-FCS name change to stop the basketball and soccer and other programs at FCS schools from being incorrectly labeled I-AA. They are Division I period. (And the ban, by the way, isn't just for football coaches.)

As for Mandel's use of the now-defunct I-AA terminology, here's what he should have written:

In the bizarre, convoluted process that is NCAA rule-making, a non-scholarship conference that competes in Division I's Football Championship Subdivision can dictate legislation for the nation's biggest football programs.