Barry Odom: Mizzou prepared to join ‘satellite camp’ feeding frenzy

First-year Missouri football head coach Barry Odom and his staff will spend a chunk of the summer recruiting in Texas and throughout the Gulf Coast region.

Or maybe they won’t.

It all depends on whether the NCAA Division I Council, which meets this week in Indianapolis, adopts a proposal from the Southeastern Conference that bans Bowl Subdivision coaches and their staffs from appearing as guest instructors at camps and clinics nationwide, so-called satellite camps.

If the NCAA amends its bylaws and outlaws the practice, Odom and company will remain tethered to Missouri for camps and clinics.

Should the proposed legislation fail, Odom, his staff and the rest of his colleagues in the SEC and the Atlantic Coast Conference will join the satellite camp free-for-all.

“The SEC has a rule — I’m trying not to smile too much here — but you’ve got to abide by it,” Odom said. “But also, from a planning standpoint, you’d better have things lined up if it passes or if it doesn’t. We’ve worked hard over the last couple months, working on where we’re going to go for our recruiting base, how we’re going to get that set, when we’re going to do it.”

Odom said in-state players remain “hugely important” for Missouri, including camps in Kansas City and St. Louis, but he indicated that the Tigers would happily attend camps in Texas and throughout the SEC footprint if it were allowed.

New Missouri defensive coordinator DeMontie Cross, who participated in such excursions during his time as co-defensive coordinator at TCU, is a proponent of satellite camps.

“The Big 12 allowed us to do that,” Cross said. “... My personal opinion, any time you get a chance to see other kids outside the state, it’s always a bonus. If you get a chance to do football drills or see them do football drills, it’s a lot better than just seeing them at the high school and stuff. There is some benefit to it.”

Odom agreed and, while nothing tops an on-campus visit in his mind, the opportunity to visit recruits on their turf, especially for players whose financial situations make it impossible for them to attend a Mizzou camp on their own, is appealing.

Since joining the SEC, Mizzou has made in-roads in fertile recruiting grounds like Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Florida, but Odom would welcome the chance for more face time with prospects in those regions.

“I want to provide a platform for the prospects and the guys that we’re recruiting,” Odom said. “I would love to give them as many opportunities as we can. Obviously, if I can get a recruit on our campus, we’ve got a great shot at getting him, so I love to have our camps here.”

The NCAA permits all college athletic programs to conduct instructional camps and clinics, but basketball and football are limited with respect to where those camps are allowed.

Camps are permitted within an institution’s home state, but out-of-state camps must be within a 100-mile radius of campus for basketball and within a 50-mile radius for football.

However, there’s a loophole for football coaches to skirt the geographical restrictions by appearing as guest instructors at private camps and clinics, provided those gatherings abide by general NCAA guidelines for camps.

Despite that, SEC and ACC bylaws currently prohibit football coaches from engaging in the practice, which SEC commissioner Greg Sankey dubbed glorified “recruiting tours” last April in voicing his opposition to the practice.

The issue gained traction when coach James Franklin, after leaving Vanderbilt for Penn State in 2014, took his staff to satellite camps in Georgia, but it was Jim Harbaugh’s Summer Swarm Tour after taking the reins at Michigan in 2015 that drew national attention and raised the hackles of SEC coaches.

In response, the SEC has proposed that the NCAA adopt its rule, outlawing the practice of satellite camps. That vote is expected to happen this week at the annual NCAA Division I Council meetings, but if the rule isn’t approved then the SEC’s prohibition will expire in May.

“We’re going to be waiting around the phone on Friday or whenever we get the results and get ready to put it into action,” Odom said. “... If the SEC changes their rule and their stance on it, we’ll have to be very proactive on getting as many places as we can get.”

Schools are permitted to set two 15-day windows for conducting its camps in June and July, according to current NCAA rules.

“If the rule isn’t adopted nationally come next summer, then our folks will be free to fan out all over the country,” former SEC commissioner Mike Slive said last May at the SEC Spring Meetings. “We thought maybe there was an interpretation that the NCAA could make to take care of this matter. We’ll either get the rule changed, or our coaches will start traveling.”

Last year, ACC commissioner John Swofford, who also proposed a similar prohibition on satellite camps, indicated his conference would follow suit in an interview with ESPN.

Satellite camps are a moot issue for basketball, because NCAA basketball coaches already are barred from working at camps outside of their school.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 9:29 AM with the headline "Barry Odom: Mizzou prepared to join ‘satellite camp’ feeding frenzy."