Posted by: Chris Vannini on January 13, 2013

The NCAA is considering new legislation this week that would change the rules of football recruiting.

The NCAA's board of directors will vote on proposals at the NCAA convention in Texas later this week. The proposals were outlined in a report by ESPN.

Among the biggest proposed changes would be a universal start date of July 1 before a prospect's junior year for off-campus contact by coaches, including home visits.

It also includes deregulation of phone calls and electronic communication, such as reversing the text message ban implemented in 2007. Coaches would be able to send private messages to recruits over social media, but not public ones. This is similar to what was recently implemented in basketball.

Back in November, Jerry Kill publicly commented that football coaches needed "catch up" with basketball coaches regarding communication with recruits.

"The basketball coaches have done a great job, they really have, with their sport," Kill said. "Football coaches, we gotta get caught up, to be honest with you, because from recruiting, the whole thing, basketball is different than football is right now, and their group has done a great job of getting legislation passed through, and football we've gotta work on that at the coaches' convention."

The difference is that, in football, you're often looking for about 25 kids, compared to just a few in basketball.

Some other proposals include allowing support staff and administrative personnel to call recruits, allowing all 10 full-time coaches to be on the road recruiting at one time, eliminating restrictions on printed material sent to recruits and changing the transition from "recruit" to "student-athlete."

That last proposal would mean a recruit can receive student-athlete benefits once they sign a letter of intent, rather than when they begin coursework at the college.

These proposals would seemingly increase the workload of coaches in recruiting by eliminating many petty restrictions. There are concerns they would benefit the big-budget schools, too.

Each separate proposal will be voted on by the 18-member panel of university presidents.

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Chris Vannini is the lead writer for CoachingSearch.com and has covered Michigan State sports for The State News, The Oakland Press and MLive.com. He writes a weekly column for the Detroit Free Press on behalf of SB Nation. Vannini lives in Big Ten country, so his foot speed is far from SEC caliber, but his pulse on coaches is hard to match. Be sure to follow @CoachingBuzz on twitter and send your feedback to chris@coachingsearch.com