I have seen and heard it said by a lot of people in the media and on message boards that we must hire our head coach by December 1 in order to save this year's recruiting class. That may or may not be true. Let's look at the facts.
CU's last regular season football game is on Friday, November 26th (Nebraska)
There's an outside chance that CU could still earn a bowl bid. If we win our last 2 games, we'd likely be looking at the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (December 30th in New York City) or the Texas Bowl (December 29th in Houston).
If we have bowl game practices in progress, then the weekends of December 4, 11, 18 and 25 look pretty good at first glance. But, as you'll see below, the 11th is during final exams, the 18th is during Winter Break and the 25th is Christmas during the recruiting Dead Period so we couldn't host anyway. The only really good visit date is December 4th. Unless we hire someone currently working for another program who has current contact with a lot of recruits, it's pretty much impossible to set up a visit that quickly. I don't see us hiring anyone on December 1 and have him convince a prospect to take a December 3 flight for an official visit.
Here is the Recruiting Calendar through National Signing Day:
August 1 - November 27: Evaluation Period Period (42 Evaluation Days at discretion of institution)
November 28 - January 29: Contact Period (exceptions listed below)
February 2: National Signing Day
http://www.allbuffs.com/showthread.php/43775-2011-Recruiting-Calendar
We have a ton of trouble recruiting JUCO transfers. Unless we hire someone currently working at a college program who has existing relationships with some JUCO prospects, we can forget about midyear JUCO transfers. As we have seen in the past, if a JUCO isn't here for spring ball it is highly unlikely that he becomes a big contributor the next fall.
Also, here is the CU-Boulder calendar:
November 22-24: Fall Break
November 25-26: Thanksgiving Break
December 10: Last Day of Classes
December 11-16: Final Exams
December 17: Commencement
December 18 - January 9: Winter Break
Basically, any weekends when students aren't on campus are not great recruiting weekends. Prospects and their parents can't get a great feel for campus life. These are pretty much the least effective recruiting visits (with home game weekends being the best).
So, where does this leave us?
I would say that it's important to hire someone as early as possible so that he can hire staff and begin contacting prospects in December. I'm not expecting many visits (if any) during December. But it will be essential to be able to work the phones and travel before the Quiet/Dead Period starts on December 18th. That Dead Period goes through January 3rd. We need to make our living on recruiting visits between January 8th and January 29th (with the Saturdays falling on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th).
But I don't think we should be so hung up on "December 1st" as some seem to be. It would be preferable, but if we hire someone currently working in college football it wouldn't be essential.
CU's last regular season football game is on Friday, November 26th (Nebraska)
There's an outside chance that CU could still earn a bowl bid. If we win our last 2 games, we'd likely be looking at the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (December 30th in New York City) or the Texas Bowl (December 29th in Houston).
If we have bowl game practices in progress, then the weekends of December 4, 11, 18 and 25 look pretty good at first glance. But, as you'll see below, the 11th is during final exams, the 18th is during Winter Break and the 25th is Christmas during the recruiting Dead Period so we couldn't host anyway. The only really good visit date is December 4th. Unless we hire someone currently working for another program who has current contact with a lot of recruits, it's pretty much impossible to set up a visit that quickly. I don't see us hiring anyone on December 1 and have him convince a prospect to take a December 3 flight for an official visit.
Here is the Recruiting Calendar through National Signing Day:
August 1 - November 27: Evaluation Period Period (42 Evaluation Days at discretion of institution)
November 28 - January 29: Contact Period (exceptions listed below)
- December 12: Quiet Period for JUCOs planning midyear enrollment
- December 13-16: Dead Period for JUCOs planning midyear enrollment
- December 17-18: Quiet Period for JUCOs planning midyear enrollment
- December 19: Quiet Period
- December 20 - January 3: Dead Period
- January 9: Quiet Period
- January 10-13: Dead Period
- January 30: Quiet Period
- January 31 - February 3: Dead Period
February 2: National Signing Day
http://www.allbuffs.com/showthread.php/43775-2011-Recruiting-Calendar
We have a ton of trouble recruiting JUCO transfers. Unless we hire someone currently working at a college program who has existing relationships with some JUCO prospects, we can forget about midyear JUCO transfers. As we have seen in the past, if a JUCO isn't here for spring ball it is highly unlikely that he becomes a big contributor the next fall.
Also, here is the CU-Boulder calendar:
November 22-24: Fall Break
November 25-26: Thanksgiving Break
December 10: Last Day of Classes
December 11-16: Final Exams
December 17: Commencement
December 18 - January 9: Winter Break
Basically, any weekends when students aren't on campus are not great recruiting weekends. Prospects and their parents can't get a great feel for campus life. These are pretty much the least effective recruiting visits (with home game weekends being the best).
So, where does this leave us?
I would say that it's important to hire someone as early as possible so that he can hire staff and begin contacting prospects in December. I'm not expecting many visits (if any) during December. But it will be essential to be able to work the phones and travel before the Quiet/Dead Period starts on December 18th. That Dead Period goes through January 3rd. We need to make our living on recruiting visits between January 8th and January 29th (with the Saturdays falling on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th).
But I don't think we should be so hung up on "December 1st" as some seem to be. It would be preferable, but if we hire someone currently working in college football it wouldn't be essential.