Ohio State / Class of 2027
Recruiting Calendar
The NCAA has published three periods for August 1 - December 31, 2026, the stretch that decides Ohio State's 2027 class. Dead period, evaluation period, quiet period: what each one lets a coaching staff do, and what it means for the news you read on the commit board.
Source: the NCAA, Fall 2026-27 NCAA Recruiting Calendar, Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, stamped “Updated: July 30, 2026” and read August 18, 2026.
- August 1-31, 2026 31 days
Dead period
No in-person recruiting contact or evaluation is permitted, on or off campus, and no prospect may take an official or unofficial visit to campus.
The quietest month of the cycle. Nothing can happen on a campus visit, so a commitment announced now was decided earlier.
- September 1 - November 29, 2026 90 days
Fall evaluation period
Coaches may go off campus to assess a prospect's academic qualifications and playing ability. They may not make in-person off-campus contact with him.
Coaches in the stands on Friday nights. Ohio State's staff gets 33 evaluation days across these three months, which is why senior film matters more than camp film from here.
33 evaluation days are allowed inside this window, 42 for the U.S. service academies.
- November 30 - December 31, 2026 32 days
Dead period
No in-person recruiting contact or evaluation is permitted, on or off campus, and no prospect may take an official or unofficial visit to campus.
The month the class closes. Every visit is already taken and every conversation happens by phone, which is why December news is signatures and flips rather than trips.
The one period with no dates
Quiet period
When: The 48 hours before a home contest, through the 48 hours after it ends, for a home game in August or on September 1 or 2.
In-person recruiting contact is permitted only on the institution's own campus. No in-person off-campus contact or evaluation.
It attaches to a game rather than to a stretch of the calendar, so it has no fixed dates and moves with the schedule.
When does the 2027 class sign?
The NCAA has not published it. The NCAA's signing-dates document for this folder still carries the previous cycle's table: its own title line reads 2025-26 and it states Division I Football early period December 3-5, 2025 and regular period February 4, 2026, which are the 2026 class's dates. The 2027 class's dates are not published by the NCAA, and no outlet states them either.
The file that will carry it is the NCAA's signing-dates document, checked August 18, 2026. For scale, not as a prediction: the 2026 class signed December 3-5, 2025, with the regular period opening February 4, 2026. A December window would sit inside the November 30 - December 31, 2026 dead period, which is routine rather than a conflict, because signing is a document and not a visit.
We will print the dates the day the NCAA does, and not a day before. If you want them the morning they land, The Scarlet Wire is where they go first.
What the published calendar does not cover
Every period above has now passed. The NCAA had not published the spring half of this cycle's calendar when this page was last built, so there is nothing here for today. The dates below the fold are still accurate as a record of the fall.
The published document is the FALL calendar. Its month grids for January through July 2027 are drawn but unshaded, so the spring half of the cycle is not yet published.
So the spring 2027 contact and evaluation windows are not on this page. Nothing is estimated from last cycle's dates. Where Ohio State's 2027 class stands right now is on the commit board; what it still needs is on the needs page; the questions fans ask most are on the FAQ.
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