Washington State doesn’t expect to see full recruiting ramifications of COVID-19 until 2022, 2023

Over the course of the next two or three weeks, a few dozen seniors will be informing head coach Nick Rolovich and his Washington State staff of their intentions to play football for the Cougars in 2021.

In this instance, during this peculiar year, not all seniors are the same.

Between Wednesday and Friday, approximately 15-20 high school seniors – many of whom have never stepped foot on the campus in Pullman because of the recruiting implications created by COVID-19 – will sign National Letters of Intent with the Cougars.

By virtue of the NCAA rule affording every fall and winter sport athlete an additional year of eligibility, Rolovich will likely wait until after WSU’s season finale at Utah on Saturday to hold individual conversations with the 13 seniors on his current roster and gauge their interest in returning to the Cougars next year. Rolovich expects he’ll be grinning when many of those conversations are over and anyone hoping to see a competitive football team in Pullman next fall should like the outcome as well.

“I got a feeling the good majority of them will be coming back,” Rolovich told reporters last week. “I don’t know that any decision is terribly final yet. Not really something I want to start bringing up. Let’s get through this year, we need to stay focused. I think from the word I get that guys are excited for getting an opportunity to get a full year to prep in the weight room and within the system. So I would expect the majority to come back.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, 17 high school seniors and one junior college prospect had made commitments to WSU. By Wednesday night, a majority of those will have signed financial aid agreements with the school.

How does one group of seniors impact the other?

Because teams will be allowed to carry more than 85 scholarship players in 2021, it isn’t something Rolovich will need to address right now. If all but one or two seniors return in 2021 and 17-20 recruits sign with WSU, the Cougars expect to be well over 85 next season, pending other transfers or departures.

The NCAA is permitting FBS programs to exceed the normal limit, but each school has to determine how, and if, it will fund additional scholarships – something that could be problematic given the financial fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It doesn’t sound like the Cougars will have to worry about being capped – “I haven’t been given any number restrictions,” Rolovich said – but he and his assistants may have to do some advanced scholarship math before they begin to zero in on the class of 2023 and ’23.

“As far as recruiting, I don’t think we’ll see the effect on this recruiting class,” Rolovich said. “I’m very anxious to see what is the plan to move forward (with) scholarship numbers when you get to the ’22 class. Next year, as I understand it, we’ll have 85 plus the seniors. But when your seniors leave, what does that January look like?

“How many roster spots are you going to have in the ’22 class? You don’t want to get kind of over your skis in commits if they’re going to, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get back to 85.’ Maybe you only have 10 slots.”

While recruits signing an NLI this week, or on National Signing Day in February, lost out on the opportunity to take visits in the spring, participate in college camps over the summer and, in many cases, were denied a high school season in the fall, the pandemic may be more detrimental to those in future classes.

If programs are able to offer half of the scholarships they would in a normal year, there could be a trickle-down effect of high-major recruits landing at low-major schools, low-major recruits settling for midmajor opportunities, midmajor prospects committing to FCS programs, and so forth.

“I think that’s a high school class and junior college class that could get hurt just by the sheer opportunity of numbers,” Rolovich said.

The first-year Cougars coach hasn’t spoken extensively about the makeup of the 2021 class, but noted the wide receiver position was a priority for a team that’s lost three scholarship wideouts to the transfer portal – Tay Martin, Kassidy Woods and Mike Pettway – since the summer.

Three high school receivers and junior college transfer CJ Moore, a former Oklahoma State player, are expected to sign with the program in the 2021 class.

“Receiver-wise, we need to get back to a more healthy number on the roster with guys on scholarship,” Rolovich said. “And we want to get a good, just in general in this class, a good foundation of freshmen that we think have not only the ability to contribute early but also to develop with all the resources that are here.”