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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Nick Saban normally spends this time of year on the road evaluating prep prospects and visiting with high school coaches.
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The Alabama coach is doing a different kind of networking these days -- all from the comfort of his office. Saban is among a handful of college head coaches using video conferences to chat with recruits because they can't meet in person.
A new NCAA regulation -- dubbed the "Saban Rule" -- is keeping coaches from making those traditional visits to high school campuses during the spring evaluation period that runs through May.
Web cams have hardly replaced telephones or text messages as the preferred mode of talking to recruits. But, said LSU spokesman Michael Bonnette, they are without a doubt the wave of the future in long-distance communicating with high school players.
Saban and Southeastern Conference rivals Les Miles of LSU and Phillip Fulmer of Tennessee are using the Internet tool. Others among several dozen schools contacted by the Associated Press are considering or have considered it.
"We've got the technology in place, and most of the high schools we're finding have the technology that allows it, so it makes sense," Bonnette said. "Once again, it's one of the perks of being on the forefront when it comes to technology, so we're going to use it to our advantage."
Even before the new rule, coaches weren't allowed to have more than brief, inadvertent contact with recruits during the spring, a rule Saban was accused of breaking last year in Miami. He has called the new restrictions against visits to high schools "ridiculous."
When they went into effect, he turned to Plan B: Web cams, which are permitted by the NCAA.
Saban said he speaks to "four or five" recruits a day on the Web when he's in the office. He had previously used the technology with LSU, the NFL's Miami Dolphins and at Alabama for things like giving players a chance to talk to doctors or sports psychiatrists.
"I just think it's a better way to communicate," said Saban, who estimates he visited some 100 high schools last spring. "It's great to communicate over the phone but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with this conversation right now if I could see the person I was talking to.
"In business meetings, they wouldn't use the technology if it wasn't a more effective way to communicate, would they?"
It may be the new, new thing. But not everyone seems likely to embrace the technology.
Florida State's 78-year-old Bobby Bowden is more at home with face-to-face chats in recruits' living rooms. What about screen to screen?
