University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coach Rusty Wright knows that when it comes to evaluating the 2021 signing class, he and his staff stole a few players in recruiting.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, it led the NCAA to start a dead period – during which in-person contact was not allowed between college coaches and recruits – that wound up lasting more than a year for Division I programs. While there were obvious drawbacks to recruiting under those conditions, there were ways in which Football Championship Subdivision teams such as UTC benefited.
The pandemic also shut down the on-campus summer camps that serve as opportunities for high school athletes to get noticed by Football Bowl Subdivision coaches, including those in the Power Five conferences. Wright and his staff adjusted to recruiting remotely and never quit working, and as a result the Mocs signed some players who were projected to potentially play at a higher level.
That’s been evident in training camp this month, with some early solid efforts by signees.
With the Mocs’ depth and experience on both sides of the ball, there was a time when those players probably would not have appeared in a game in their first year of college. However, with the NCAA changing its redshirt rule ahead of the 2018 season to allow football players to appear in up to four games without losing a year of eligibility, teams now have an opportunity to get younger guys valuable game experience and still be able to have them for four full seasons of eligibility.