On Wednesday, the NCAA Division I Council announced that the ongoing recruiting dead period, which was initially put into place on March 13, would be extending into the 2021 year. As of now, the dead period will continue through Jan. 1, 2021.

While that has implications for college programs and recruits across the country, here's how it impacts Colorado, specifically on the football front.

I should quickly state that in terms of the dead period both helping and hurting Colorado, I say these things that follow below here and now, with the NCAA having yet to make any corresponding moves regarding pushing back the traditional signing period in February or eliminating the early signing period in December.

Before even getting into the implications for the Buffs, it's worth noting first how awful this whole situation is for Class of 2021 recruits, many of them are committing the next three, four or five years of their lives to colleges they haven't seen in person.

Zoom calls and virtual visits are awesome — I think they, as a pandemic-influenced invention, will be sticking around for the foreseeable future. When the world of recruiting returns to normal, I could see the virtual visits as being viable regular precursors to recruits taking in-person visits.

Talk to the coaches on Zoom, take a virtual tour of the facilities and campus of a given school and then from there, have both parties decide if an in-person visit on the school's dime is viable.

While virtual visits are a cool concept and have done as much as possible to compensate for no in-person visits being allowed since March, implications stemming from the ongoing dead period loom.

Both the positive and negative implications for Colorado football have to do with the recruitment and prospects of landing and signing blue chip prospects as well as out-of-state talent in general.

Here's the biggest positive. poaching attempts on four-star TE Erik Olsen will be far less likely to succeed.

It's wishful thinking to assume when Olsen committed on July 4, that other opportunities he gathered throughout his recruitment — six other Pac-12 schools offered him and he had nearly 20 D1 offers in general — simply went out the window upon verbally pledging.

I'm not doubting the integrity of Olsen's verbal commitment to Colorado, but rather pointing out that if he had the opportunity to visit other schools, he likely would have. Stanford and Notre Dame stick out as programs Olsen probably would have wanted to check out.

Had this been a normal recruiting cycle, Olsen in all likelihood would have taken the opportunity to see other schools. That would have strapped Buff Nation in for a stressful rest of the summer, fall and winter in seeing if he'd actually end up signing an NLI to Colorado.

Who knows — if the schedule holds up with the signing period in Feb. and if between Jan. 1 and mid February OVs and whatnot are allowed to take place — Olsen may end up taking some additional visits. It's hard to predict what the D1 Council will do as Jan. 1 approaches in terms of prospectively lifting the dead period.

Until the ink on a recruit's NLI is dry, don't count your chickens before they hatch.

We'll see what happens and if the dead period is lifted before the February signing day, but here and now, on the Olsen's inability to visit other schools is a positive for the Buffs.

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The other side of that coin is far less positive, though.

For example, look at what transpired with four-star WR Ketron Jackson, who recently committed to Arkansas.

Jackson had very positive things to say about Darrin Chiaverini and Karl Dorrell and liked how he was being sold around being CU's next Laviska Shenault.

The Buffs' recruiting pitch to him was solid.

Coaching connection/rapport: check.

Viable future at CU: check.

But of course, what was missing from the equation was the in-person Boulder sell.

Colorado has coaches that can recruit and resonate with young men. Dorrell has received some flak for his lack of social media flare and the No. 66-ranked class he's crafted in 2021 (which in my humble opinion is more than acceptable given the medieval scroll's worth of disadvantages he's faced in the wacky year of 2020) but the man has shown he can connect with recruits.

Boy, is he at a disadvantage not being able to couple that with showing kids firsthand what CU has to offer them, though.

It's not a sure bet by any means that Jackson would have chosen CU had he gotten the chance to visit Boulder, but is sure as hell all but disqualified the Buffs from getting him in that he wasn't.

Austin Barry, the OL target of Colorado's who wound up committing to ASU, likened the Buffs' facilities to LSU's. That is an incredible statement but frankly, one that other prospects weren't able to judge for themselves via an in-person tour.

And on that note, throw Barry into the bag of players Colorado would have had a better fighting chance to land had he been able to conduct an official visit.

The bottom line is this — the Buffs simply don't have a winning tradition to sell to kids like other programs, in and out of the Pac-12 do.

But CU's equalizer is the mountains and Boulder itself.

It definitely hurts the Buffs on the recruiting trail not to be able to flex and show off campus and the surrounding town.

Yeah, occasionally a recruit will go out of his way to get into Boulder and see things for himself on a self-paid visit, but that is few and far between.

So, the ongoing dead period winds down to this: there's the positive of feeling safer with Olsen, but it comes with the caveat that the probability of getting other blue chippers and out-of-state studs takes a hit.

In closing, there will be a lot of "what ifs?" to look back on when all is said and done regarding how CU's 2021 recruiting might have ben different had the Buffs been able to bring in their primary targets for personalized, in-person visits.