There are plenty of important issues that the ACC coaches and athletic directors are discussing at their annual spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida this week. Some may even get voted on, although none likely as big as some changes that have come in years past.
One topic of discussion since the spring, though, has been a rather odd one: satellite camps.
It seems like such a relatively small issue, but it's one that a lot of the ACC coaches -- particularly Clemson head coach (head of the coach's committee) Dabo Swinney -- feel strongly about.
Programs are prohibited already from traveling around the country to hold camps for recruits and prospects (they have to stay within a 50-mile radius if the school is hosting the camp). But there's nothing prohibiting the coaches from staffing camps hosted at other universities, and that's what's been happening.
For example, new Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh is taking his staff on a nine-stop nationwide tour that includes Alabama. They're not technically hosting the camps, but they're advertised as if they are.
Prattville High School Elite Football Camp with @JimHarbaugh49 & @umich Coaching Staff June 5th 2015. Be There!! pic.twitter.com/2gCbeKbugV
— Coach Jackson (@CoachJack10) March 24, 2015
The Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 all allow their coaches to participate in satellite camps. The ACC and the SEC are the only leagues to restrict it, and often, the coaches from those other programs hold their satellite camps in and around the fertile southern recruiting ground.
The opinions of the ACC's coaches seem to vary quite a bit. Some coaches think the camps are fine. Notre Dame, not subject to the league's bylaws, holds satellite camps. Some think the camps are an egregious bending of the rules and should be stopped. Some agree that the loophole in the rules is being exploited, but figure if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't the ACC?
Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson said as much Tuesday in the Orlando Sentinel: "I don't think we should do anything that makes us less competitive nationally."
But Swinney's stance, which he articulated during the spring football teleconference call a few weeks ago, is clear.
"I don't think it's a good thing, because I think ultimately what happens is instead of having camps, you're having combines," Swinney said. "I think there's enough of that. You're going to have camps in every city and basically, again, it just becomes a combine."
It doesn't seem to be hurting either the ACC or the SEC right now, anyway -- according to 247 Sports, the two leagues have seven of the top 10 recruiting classes in the country (five from the SEC and two from the ACC). But with Harbaugh joining elite recruiter Urban Meyer in the Big Ten, it's become more of an immediate concern.
There's no change coming anytime soon, either: Swinney reiterated on Tuesday that the coaches are "not for it" (it, of course, meaning a lifting of the restrictions).
But both the ACC and SEC are pushing for the NCAA to change the rules so that satellite camps aren't allowed. If that does not happen, the ACC will likely be forced to change their own rules.
Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino, who is against the camps, put it best back on that spring teleconference call. "I'm not in favor of the satellite camps. I think that's kind of a loophole in the rules and allows you to go to somebody else's campus and act like it's their camp," Petrino said.
"But if it continues, if they don't restrict the satellite camps, then probably we need to be able to do what everybody else can do."
