NCAA rescinds satellite camp ban, wants 'broad assessment' of recruiting

For weeks, the hand wringing over the proposed banning of satellite camps has been frequent and loud. Those that detested the ban (myself included) had one final hope when the NCAA Board of Governors voted on whether to enact the ban or rescind it. This still left many worried; like a lot of bodies with final say on any legislation, rubber stamping whatever an advisory council sends your way is common place.

Luckily, that didn't take place today. The Board of Governors voted to rescind the satellite camp ban and asked the Division I council to take a closer look at what it called the "recruiting environment."

After the Division I Council (made up of representatives from each FBS conference) voted earlier this month by a margin of 10-5 to enact the ban, stories of potential impropriety among the voters started to arise -- the loudest probably coming from our own coach, Mike Leach. He wondered very loudly on a national radio show how the Pac-12 (who, along with the other Power 5 conferences, has a vote that counts for 2 on the council) could've voted to ban the camps when 11 schools voted against it. Turns out, UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero voted for the ban because ... well, everyone else was going to. Then the Sun Belt's representative didn't vote the way they should've either, meaning the vote should've actually been 8-7 to reject the ban.

One would have to assume much of the brouhaha over how the vote went down caused the Board of Governors to be wary of passing such a hastily cobbled together rule. But they can't come out and say that so their rejection of the rule is actually about "direct(ing) the Council to conduct a broad assessment of the FBS recruiting environment."

What that really means? We won't know until September 1, when the board wants recommendations from the council. But at the very least, it's giving the council more time to consider a poorly thought out rule that unfairly punished schools outside traditional recruiting hot beds -- and also limited opportunities for potential student athletes, something that's apparently gotten the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice. (Yikes!)

It's not often I say this, but the NCAA deserves some praise for this decision. The ban unfairly hurt smaller schools or those located away from traditional recruiting hot beds. Despite Dan Guerrero's best efforts to screw it up for everyone else in this conference, things are back to the way they should be ... for now.