New on Sports Illustrated: NCAA Extends Recruiting Dead Period Through July 31

The NCAA announced Wednesday that its recruiting dead period will run through July 31 for all Division I sports.

On Wednesday, the NCAA's Division I Council Coordination Committee 

announced it has extended the recruiting dead period through July 31 for all sports.

The committee had previously extended the recruiting dead period through June 31 in an announcement two weeks ago.

“The extension maintains consistent recruiting rules for all sports and allows coaches to focus on the student-athletes who may be returning to campus,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Pennsylvania. “The committee is committed to reviewing the dead period again in late June or early July.”

College football already had a dead period from June 22 to July 24, but now there will be no official visits allowed through the end of July. For men's basketball, the dead period extension removes evaluation periods that programs had scheduled throughout June and July, a time when campus visits would normally have been permitted. Women's basketball programs normally would have been allowed to host prospects for on-campus visits for the whole month of June.

In the same announcement, the committee stated that strength and conditioning coaches would be allowed to virtually observe workouts for safety reasons—only at the request of student-athletes—beginning June 1.