Additional changes adopted for recruiting rules and infractions process
The Division I Cabinet on Wednesday approved changes to the notification-of-transfer windows for multiple sports, as proposed by each respective sport’s oversight committee.
Moving forward, adjusted transfer windows include:
- Football (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision): A 10-day window beginning the first business day following Jan. 1.
- Cross country/track and field: A 15-day window following the conclusion of the men’s and women’s cross country championships, with an additional 10-day period at the conclusion of the outdoor men’s and women’s track and field championships.
- Women’s gymnastics: A 15-day window beginning the Monday after the National Collegiate women’s gymnastics championship.
In-person attendance at other teams’ contests
In men’s basketball and football (both FCS and FBS), coaches and other team-specific staff members will now be prohibited from attending preseason, regular-season and conference tournament games involving other teams. Exceptions to the prohibition would apply if the contest is part of an event in which their team is also competing or if the contest involves a family member of the coach or staff member as a participant.
In FBS football, head coaches still will be permitted to attend a bowl game occurring in their home stadium or a College Football Playoff game. In FCS football, football staff will be permitted to attend the FCS national championship game and the College Football Playoff national championship game.
In addition, football staff members at schools that are members of the Southwestern Athletic Conference and Mid-Eastern Athletics conference will be permitted to attend the Celebration Bowl, and all football staff members from Southwestern Athletic Conference schools can attend the SWAC championship game.
In men’s basketball, team-specific staff members still will be able to attend NCAA championship and other postseason contests.
The respective oversight committees supported the rule change as a means of reducing in-person recruiting of potential transfers, with the hope of deterring coaches or team staff members from engaging in “tampering” behavior before a student-athlete has been entered into the Transfer Portal during their respective sport’s notification-of-transfer window.
Infractions process
The Cabinet approved several proposals put forward by the Division I Infractions Process Task Force, including allowing for a neutral administrator to be appointed to resolve petitions for immediate penalties for failure to cooperate or resolve investigative disputes prior to the submission of a processing document, regardless of whether a case is ultimately submitted on the merits to the Committee on Infractions.
The proposal is intended to reduce the duration of disputes over investigative procedures, which in the current infractions process can dramatically lengthen an investigation, at a time when members want swift investigations into potential violations and resolutions of violations determined to have occurred. The task force recommendation noted that appointing a neutral administrator, who is separate and distinct from the Committee on Infractions, avoids the perception of predetermined outcomes on alleged violations.
In addition to the neutral administrator, the Cabinet approved a recommendation allowing for simpler resolution selection procedures to reduce red tape while allowing for negotiated resolutions to be used as advisory when processing infractions cases. Currently, they are not considered case precedent. However, the great majority of infractions cases are resolved via the highly cooperative negotiated resolution — in which the schools, individuals and enforcement staff agree on the violations and the appropriate penalties and the Committee on Infractions agrees that the resolution meets member expectations for how violations are adjudicated. As a result, there are increasingly fewer cases that serve as actual precedent that reflect recent cases and appropriate resolutions.
