One of the biggest hot-button issues in college football this offseason has been the debate over the fairness of satellite camps. The NCAA put an end to the practice with a ban a couple of weeks ago, but the United States Department of Justice has opened up an investigation to perhaps have a say on the issue going forward.
The NCAA Division 1 council voted in favor of a satellite camp bans for all FBS coaches, effective immediately. The ban prevents coaches like Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Penn State’s James Franklin and Nebraska’s Mike Riley from attending and working at camps in the south in states like Florida, Georgia and Alabama. The reaction to the ban has been just as heated as the debates leading up to the ban, with a handful of coaches from conferences that voted for the ban suggesting a lack of consistency between the way coaches and conferences feel on the subject. The SEC, ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 were the power conferences voting in favor of the ban, with the Mountain West Conference and Sun Belt Conference joining them. The Big Ten, American Athletic Conference, Conference USA and MAC all voted against the ban in a losing effort.
The dust never quite settled, and according to a report from USA Today the United States Department of Justice is now getting involved to some degree. The reason the DOJ is interested is because it wants to know if shutting down satellite camp practices actually reduces the number of college opportunities for potential college football players. This is the main argument made by those opposing the ban, as it is believed to make it more difficult for a player to evaluate all of his (or her) potential options for higher education. The problem is there has never been a formal study conducted to demonstrate the impact satellite camps do have for the student-athlete other than what is claimed.
It may be too early to suggest this will result in the government overstepping the NCAA’s authority here, and it may end up having no impact on the end game result of the satellite camp ban story. The NCAA, however, could end up amending the ban on its own at some point. Oliver Luck, a former West Virginia Athletics Director and now a member of the NCAA, suggested recently he expects the NCAA will revisit the satellite camp ban. When that would happen and what could come out of it remains uncertain, but given the trouble that was learned regarding the Pac-12’s vote and the reaction from many from coast to coast, even from within the conferences that voted for the ban, it would seem likely there will be some amendments made to the ban to relax the strictness of the rules. It just may have to wait a year.