Utah State, Wyoming winners in satellite camps

When the NCAA made a knee-jerk reaction to ban satellite camps it was a blow to high school athletes who would be discovered on a much less basis, and also college in areas with either little talent or surrounded by bigger programs.

Wyoming has been on the recruiting and Cowboys head coach Craig Bohl tells ESPN.com about how satellite camps really important to their program.

“Because we’re in a sparsely populated area, we really need to canvas the country and these camps give us an opportunity to do that,” Bohl said. “Some schools that are in a proximity where there’s an abundance of prospects that come to their camps see things differently. Being in Laramie, Wyoming, we have 570,000 people in the whole state, so we’re in a different situation.”

The amount of FBS, or even FCS, talent in Wyoming is few and far between, and according to ESPN’s recruiting database there are just two players listed from the state for the 2017 cycle with neither being rated.

Getting out of state and being able to go to camps across the country allows Wyoming to get an eye and evaluate an infinite amount of more athletes than if athletes could only be evaluated in-person by the Wyoming staff. Video recruiting has improved so much over the past few years with a service like Hudl, but seeing them in person to allow to see what the athlete is all about.

One athlete that Wyoming offered at a satellite camp was wide receiver Kevin Davis out of California. His comments are exactly why these camps are a big deal.

“I must say, I have great parents,” Davis said. “I know if they had to, they would have tried to make sure I had the opportunity, but our camp choices would have been based on the interest of the schools. I know it would have been hard financially and I don’t think I would have had the opportunity I had to have some great schools [coaching me] all at once.”

Utah State head coach Matt Wells is also out in California and he echos what most rational people say about these camps as it allows for more visibility for the future college athlete.

“We approach it from a recruiting standpoint as a tremendous opportunity for us to get out and be able to evaluate a lot of guys at one time,” Wells said. “I think the best thing about these satellite camps is it helps a lot of kids be seen.”

The NCAA made the right move in allowing these camps to proceed. There likely will be some oversight and maybe limit the amount of camps to a certain date range or just the number overall.

Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh has made a big deal about going all over the country, and the world to Australia, and schools like Utah State and Wyoming do not have the budget to be part of 30 camps in 30 days and in 30 different cities. Restrictions can be put in place without hurting schools finding players or vice versa.