Urban Meyer in the Offseason

Continuing our series on college football coaches in the offseason we bring you today to Florida coach Urban Meyer who is also talking to alumni and complaining about strict recruiting rules .

Are recruiting restrictions making it harder for college coaches to judge the character of their recruits? Florida coach Urban Meyer suggested as much on Wednesday.

Speaking at a Gators booster event in Miami -- less than a week after one of his players was kicked off the team after being charged with allegedly using the credit card of a woman killed in an accident -- Meyer said restrictions on contact with recruits hinder his ability to measure their character.

''The NCAA is pulling us off the recruiting process,'' he said, in comments reported by South Florida media outlets. "I'm not allowed to go out [to visit players] anymore. I'm not allowed to text message. I'm trying to find out as best I can. You just keep re-evaluating.

"If you just look around and see some of the things that are going on, it's amazing. It's concerning. It's alarming," Meyer said. "So we take a great deal of time and effort in trying to educate guys, work with them and recruit character. Are we perfect? Absolutely not."

You will recall that last week Florida safety Jamar Hornsby was kicked off the team  for using the credit card of a deceased woman for several months. Of course, Hornsby was a junior and the text message rule and "Saban rule" didn't take effect until last August and this spring respectively, so Meyer had plenty of opportunities to evaluate Hornsby's character. And his assistant coaches are still allowed to travel throughout the spring evaluation period to talk to high school coaches and meet these kids.

But if you ask Joe Tiller and other Big Ten coaches, there is actually too much recruiting going on, and they would like to see a two week dead period every summer.

Big Ten Conference football coaches hope to spearhead a proposal that would add a two-week dead period each summer to the NCAA's recruiting calendar.

Introduced this week at the Big Ten's annual meetings of coaches and athletic directors, the proposal requires each school to set aside two weeks during the summer as a dead period, which prohibits in-person contact with recruits either on or off campus. The period would afford coaches, particularly assistants, a respite before training camp and the season.

The current recruiting calendar lists June 1-July 31 as a quiet period, which permits in-person contact with recruits on campus.

"We've gone to a policy where three coaches have to be in the office at all times," Purdue coach Joe Tiller said Wednesday. "God forbid you're not there when you've got a pretty good prospect and his parents standing outside the door. A dead period means nobody's going to drift into your office.

"We always talk about quality of life and assistant coaches and the ability for them and for us to get away and recharge our batteries, totally get away from the sport, but we can never get away from the sport because of year-round recruiting. [The proposal] would make a difference."

So now Joe and Jay can take their two week Jersey shore vacation without feeling guilty about it!