DURHAM — Duke coach David Cutcliffe said Tuesday his favorite times of the year are Christmas and football recruiting season. The latter picks up on Sunday, after Duke hosts North Carolina in the 3:30 p.m. season finale. That contact period runs through Dec. 20th.
Actually, the hot recruiting time for football is the holiday season. After Dec. 20, there's a dead period (no contact, no evaluation) from Christmas through the New Year, then another 4-5 days that allow contact, then another dead period for the football coaches annual convention. Coaches then have another two weeks to seal the deal before recruits can begin signing letters of intent in early February.
Cutcliffe had all that information in his head while he rattled off the schedule for the next two months. He can do that because all coaches have to take a annual test on NCAA recruiting rules before they can be certified to go out on the road. Cutcliffe describes what the test is like here and even gets in a good poke at the NCAA and its weighty bureaucracy.
