What will the new official visit period mean for Pitt?

MORE HEADLINES - New OL offer has a connection to Borbely | Getting to Know: Cameron O'Neil | 2020 WR hopes to visit again | Where does Pitt stand with scholarships for the 2018 roster? | PODCAST: Draft recap and Capel's latest recruiting win | Ranking the WPIAL: The best of the last 10 years, pt. 2

Last year, the NCAA made two major changes to the recruiting process when it added two elements to the recruiting calendar.

First, the organization created a new early signing period for football, giving recruits three days in December to sign their Letters of Intent, if they were so inclined; that supplemented the traditional signing period that runs from the first Wednesday in February through the end of March.

In conjunction with that change, the NCAA added a new early official visit period. Meant to give recruits extra opportunities for official visits before the early signing period, the new official visit period runs from April 1-June 24.

While the early signing period had its inaugural run last December, the first early visit period is currently ongoing, and college coaches are just as curious as anyone else about how this spring adjustment will affect the recruiting process.

“I don’t know,” Pitt linebackers coach Rob Harley, who doubles as the team’s recruiting coordinator, said this spring. “I don’t know until we’re done will we really have a good feeling about it.”

For Harley - and most college coaches - the ideal time for an official visit is in December and January. Coaches tend to believe that if they can get a recruit’s official visit as close to Signing Day as possible, they will position themselves prominently in the recruit’s mind - and, by extension, be more likely to land the recruit.

As such, coaches are concerned that an official visit in May or June could fade from memory by the time Dec. 20 rolls around - “You’re going to be like, ‘Hey, remember seven months ago when you visited us?’” Harley said - so the key with the early official visits is making sure they are only used when necessary.

“I think you’ve just got to get with the kids and find out who’s serious about your school and who’s serious about making a commitment and kind of has a date in mind; that gives you a feel for who you want to [have on an official visit].”

Nikolas Ognenovic, a three-star tight end from Fort Lauderdale, is one such prospect; his plans for official visits are tied to his plans for committing.

“I want to make a decision sometime in the summer, so taking some of my officials now or in the summer will be better when making my decision,” Ognenovic told Panther-Lair.com. “As far as athletes in general, it really just depends on when they want to make a decision.”

So far, Ognenovic said he has scheduled an official visit to Kentucky and is looking at visiting Pitt in mid-June. Another Florida athlete, cornerback Tiawan Mullen, has also set an official visit to Pitt for the weekend of June 15-17, and more prospects from Florida could end up on campus then as well. Ognenovic and Mullen represent one group of recruits who could take advantage of the early visit period: prospects who want to commit early will now have the opportunity to visit schools that are farther from home without investing the resources necessary for an unofficial visit.

The spring official visit period can also be beneficial for quarterbacks, who generally tend to commit earlier in the process and will now have a chance to take official visits before making those commitments. Top Pitt target Davis Beville, for instance, is looking to visit the Panthers in the next two months, and Connor Bazelak, another Pitt quarterback target, is also considering a spring trip.

“I would expect that the guys that are serious about committing early, guys that are maybe early-enrolling and certain positions like quarterbacks, those are going to be the guys that probably visit early and that you’ve got to really track,” Harley said.

“I think it’s just having a good conversation with the guys you’re interested in and them being honest and you being honest with them: ‘How serious are we?’ That’s what it comes down to.”

There is also a strategic element to the new official visit period. In the past, coaches had a number of decisions to make in putting together official visit weekends, whether it was the size of the visiting group of recruits, which recruits to have on campus at the same time or when to hold the visit weekends for different recruits.

Now they also have to consider how many visits to use before the summer. The NCAA limits schools to just 56 total official visits; that was the limit in the past and it hasn’t changed. But with nearly three months added to the official visit calendar, that number will likely have to be increased.

“I’m assuming that’s going to have to change,” Harley said. “Obviously, I’m not in those meetings. I’m not privy to all of that. But that’s an issue…it really just comes back to being serious. That shouldn’t be an issue if kids are serious about coming to Pitt or whatever school and they’re serious about committing in December or enrolling early. That’s really not an issue - you know that visit means something.

“Remember this: on the flip side of that, those guys only have five visits. So if they’re just taking a vacation visit in April, they’re wasting a visit. I don’t know if the kids really understand that. I don’t know if they even understood the five visits technically before. You have five, man, so they’d better be serious about taking an early visit. Otherwise, they’re going to be cut short in December and January.”

There’s another interesting angle to the early visit period for Pitt and other schools. Historically, June is a very busy month. Pitt landed seven commitments during June in each of the last two years, five the year before that, seven in June of 2014 and 11 in June of 2013. Dave Wannstedt, Todd Graham, Paul Chryst and Pat Narduzzi all made significant progress on their recruiting classes in June, for a variety of reasons.

Now that recruits can take official visits leading into and during June, will that change things for schools like Pitt that have success in the sixth month?

“We’re attacking it the same way,” Harley said. “Obviously we’re prepared to do a visit weekend in those months, but I don’t know if we’re changing it right now without going through it for the first time. We’re going to have to evaluate it after - how has it affected us given our past? How does it affect us going forward? - then we’ll make some changes if needed.

“Right now, we’re trying to build relationships, and again: communicate, communicate, communicate to see who’s real, who’s not real, who’s trustworthy, who’s being honest on both sides of the fence. You just communicate. It hasn’t changed that part. It hasn’t changed the recruitment process and what we’re doing. You just have to dig a little earlier and find out if those official visits - is the juice worth the squeeze?”