Yesterday, I stopped by BA and saw a thread started by OCF about international recruiting. I made an attempt to get it back on track, and then today it's vanished from site. Perhaps there never was such a thread, and I just imagined it.

Oh, now I see it's been sent to Siberia. Guess I shouldn't have made the effort to get it back on track. I was kind of interested in people's actual thoughts on the subject of that thread.

It was a pretty early trigger on the rail switch to Siberia.

Yes it was however it didn't get sent to Siberia just across the border to the General Discussion page.

I agree it was historically at BA to an early time make this move, but this has become the norm recently.

I appreciate JimLurker's attempt to right the ship, but I guess it was too little too late. The political leaning posts had already been made, and I've noticed that some of the mods have recently begun moving threads after the first vaguely political post and not waiting for an all out political discussion to emerge. I don't mind this if it's done consistently -- like an official who makes the same calls against both teams and at the end as well as the beginning of the game. However, I'm sad because I'll never get any discussion of the issue I raised now that the thread is in Siberia. I seriously thought that this might be an important recruiting strategy going forward.

OCF - we can still have the discussion about recruiting players from other countries. No one shut off that conversation. Several questions though about the logistics of such a move. 1) Is the AD charged the in-state rate or the out of state rate for those scholarships? 2) How is NIL money and revenue sharing money paid to non-citizens? 3) Would they be here on a work visa or student visa? Many schools have these players but I was just wondering how that will all work at 25-26 rolls around.

My understanding of the answers to those questions:

1. They are charged the out-of-state rate.
2. Most come in on student visas. There is some stipulation on these visas that prohibit an athlete from receiving NIL money. I think it has something to do with NIL funds not being considered "earned income." These students are free to get a part-time job at McDonalds. I know that student visa require, in most instances, for the U.S. to guarantee to the student's country of origin that he or she will return after graduation. I know one instance where a student from a country in the Mideast who refused to return was forcefully deported and returned against his will.
3. I think a student who comes in on a work visa probably would be allowed to collect NIL funds. However, many countries will not allow their nationals to come to school in a foreign country on a work visa.

I would suspect that we have people on this board who know more of the intricacies of this situation than I do. But, in broad brushstrokes that's my understanding, gleaned mainly from searches on the interwebs over some period of time.

I'm not quite sure on item (2). I think that folks on student visas typically are prohibited from any employment that isn't on-campus work and that on-campus work has hours caps. Otherwise, I think only work that's part of Occupational Practical Training (OPT), or Curricular Practical Training (CPT) is allowed otherwise. I don't think it's true that they're free to get a part-time job at McDonald's, actually. If that were true, it would be pretty easy to pay NIL money, too.

Also, I don't think the requirement is specifically that you have to return to your home country (that would be a bad investment for the US, right?). It's more that you have to have established ties to your home country and you're required to return post OPT/OPT STEM Extension if you don't get the proper work sponsorship to stay. The vast, vast majority of folks coming to the US on student visas try to get hired in the US so that they can stay here; many enroll in post-graduate programs on the side to extend the timeline, in fact. Nowadays, there are schools in the US that exist basically entirely for that purpose.

I suspect it would be difficult but not impossible to get NIL money to an international student on a student visa. Basically, you'd have to make sure that the "work" was somehow related to the field of study. So 1) there would actually have to be work and 2) it has to match the person's major reasonably well.

BLSS, what you say about employment of those on student visa is probably correct, and I stand corrected on that point.

On the other hand, I know many countries do require guarantees from the country their nationals are studying in that they will return after their education. This is particularly true of countries in the so-called "developing world," probably less so in most European or other more developed nations. I know a married couple in Athens who came from two different African nations -- both on student visas. They had to return to their respective nations after graduation. However, once they returned home they were both able to return a few months latter to the U.S. on a different type of visa, and now both have green cards. In this case, I think the officials in their home countries were persuaded to give them non-student visas to return because of their family situation -- they had two children born in the U.S. and both were gainfully employed at Ohio University. So, there are ways around these student visa requirements in some situations, but they do exist in many cases. Perhaps, the situations you are referring to involve students here on student visas from countries with less strict requirements.

However, I guess all of this is not relevant to the point of NIL money to those on student visa, which as you describe, I think, authoritatively, is a no-no (to use technical legal language) except, perhaps, in some rare situation where the "work" would match the field of study. That seems a stretch in most situations, but as you say not technically impossible. I suspect that most university law departments would be very hesitant to go down that path, barring very unusual particulars of the case at hand. The last thing they want is to get into a legal battle with the feds.

So, the question now returns to my original query: Would it be worth the effort for Boals and company to to invest some time and energy in trying to secure the services of a BigManz from a foreign country who would come here on a student visa? It seems to me that trying to recruit this type of player levels the playing field a little because a P4 school can't swoop in at that last moment and offer a boatload of cash that we can't match. It makes the recruiting be based more on some of the old variables -- chemistry between coach and recruit, chemistry with teammates, how much they like the campus, the local scenery, and, perhaps, whether or not their is already a community of nationals from the player's nation on campus.

It's nice to see you two having a rational conversation.

OCF, I think you have a good idea here. Some other mid-majors are using this approach to recruiting. I'm not sure why Ohio couldn't do it.

I think the answer here is definitely. They should be looking under every rock they can for a big man, and it should basically be a singular recruiting focus until they find one.

That said, I am not sure I buy that we can't get US big men because of the NIL. Is there a team in the MAC that doesn't have at least one true big that's better than any (real) 5 we have on the roster? It would be one thing if we were unable to recruit against the P5; but we're getting beat by peers here.

+1. The portal is starting to fill with guys from NAIA, D3, and D2. JUCO players are available year around. These to me seem like the 4 key channels for us to find size, especially if we’re limited funds wise for D1 transfer size.

Basically, find 2 guys with higher floors than Searls from the lower levels. For a backup big, Searls held his own at this level. The 4 best players on Drake are all from D2, Robert Morris’ (who might now be our best non-conference win) best player is from D2. Heck, Jaylen Wells went from Sonoma State -> Wazzou -> NBA.

Lower level talent can play at our level and there’s size to be had if the staff just looks.