The ACC football spring meetings are underway this week and as usual, many subjects are on the table for discussion. The hot topic, a potential ACC Network, still sounds as if it's going nowhere. Chas over at Pitt Blather is correct in that there's little substance right now. One thing that Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi and athletic director Scott Barnes did touch on was the reinstatement of satellite camps.
Satellite camps, which allow programs to host off of their campus to work out recruits, were banned a few weeks ago and Narduzzi was in favor of that. The camps were, however, reinstated shortly after that announcement and Narduzzi and Barnes addressed it this week at the spring meetings.
The reasons held by both, as Narduzzi mentioned before, focused on the need for coaches to be on campus with their own players. Per Craig Meyer of the Post-Gazette:
"One of the reasons not to have them, which is a moot point at this point, is being with our kids back on campus. We’ll have a program that starts up. Our kids are there and we’re allowed to work with them and do some sort of football-related activities for two hours during the week. If we’re not there, it’s hard to have those activities. When you have 105 children there, it becomes time we’re taking away from our kids."
And among a few other reasons, Barnes also cited the need to take care of the current players:
"Two things are impacted by that, minimum. One of them is we have 25 new student-athletes coming to our campus. We should be spending our time with them, not out in the hinterlands chasing other camps. The second is the quality of life of our coaches. They spend an inordinate amount of time on the road anyway. Now, if we’re back in this game, there is going to be less time at home for them."
As I wrote at the time of Narduzzi's initial comments in the aftermath of the announcement, there's no easy answer here. Not having them hurts the kids, who can get less exposure. Having them can create an unfair advantage for schools that can afford to set them up all over the country (and/or are willing to be on the road that much away from the current roster players).
My only real thought on this is that whatever the rules, Pitt needs to be prepared to adjust. If satellite camps are open for business, I want the Panthers to be actively involved and running them to be able to compete.
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