THE RECRUITING PROCESS
By Phil Hermanns
Have you ever wondered why some high school football players get looked at, and offered more than other, maybe even better, players? Or why some guys get D1 offers when others don’t? In this three parts series, we will explore the world of college football recruiting from end to end.
Closing the Deal
College football recruiting has changed so much over the last five years, and is continuing to evolve every year. A student-athlete, parents and coaches need to try to stay current in order to give the player the best chance of obtaining a college roster spot and/or a little money for that college education! By now the student-athlete is in the last half of their junior year taking the necessary classes, registered with the Clearinghouse, taking the ACT/SAT, created a highlight film and has sent out emails to coaches. In this last segment we will discuss different aspects of improving your recruiting status and making a choice.
First, keep sending out emails (with the profile sheet and link to your highlight film). Send short update emails to the schools you have previously sent to, maybe simply informing them of an updated ACT score, or even a new personal best on the bench press. Anything to get them (and keep them) looking at you and evaluating you.
Rating
Whether you like it or not, if you follow college football recruiting the you will see everyone throwing around a lot of "star" ratings these days, but what does that mean, and how do you get “rated”?
- There are four major recruiting databases, Rivals, Scout, ESPN and 247 Sports. Rather than trying to explain the complicated process to you, here links to a few real good articles on how the system works:
https://www.cougcenter.com/wsu-foot...n-247-star-rating-system-national-signing-day
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/117345-recruiting-for-beginners-part-i-how-are-players-ranked
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/02/how_are_recruiting_rankings_de.html
- Getting in to these databases is tough to do. For two of the four major recruiting databases Rivals and Scout (Nike), one way to get in is to attend there combine.
https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-camp-series-presented-by-adidas-2018-faqs
https://www.theopening.com/regionals
These two combines are free and you will need your high school coach to send a recommendation for you. There are no college coaches there, but at the bigger ones there are a lot of sports writers (who are the majority of the raters…). They are run like the NFL combine measuring speed, strength, agility etc. and usually incorporate a head-to-head competition also. There are amazing athletes coming from all over the country so if you are truly D1 talent they will see it. It is highly debated whether college coaches care about the “stars” of a recruit, and while the stars may not matter, what these combines ARE good for is getting the athlete national exposure outside of the normal local recruiting area.
- Another way to get “rated” is to search the internet for an email address of one of these writers and send him the athletes film to see if he will give a rating. The success rate of this is low as there are so many athletes request this, but it may be worth a shot.
- Just one final note on combines, there are some “pay-to-play” combines, NUC, VTO, FBU and others that charge from $75 - $100. While you will see how you compare to other athletes, there is not near the national exposure for these types of combines as the big four.
Camps
- In part 2 of this series I had advised sitting the athlete down and creating a target list of colleges. Another use of this list is to determine which college’s camps he would like to attend. When we were going through the process, there were several coaches who wouldn’t even consider my son unless he planned to attend their camp, which can be financially tough the further away from home the college is. To be fair to coaching staffs, most everyone looks good on the 2-3 minute highlight film where and athlete is only putting their best plays on it, so a schools camp gives the coaches a chance to see your size and skill level in person.
- Most of schools conduct these camps somewhere between the end of May and the beginning of July. Some are on the weekend, others have weekday dates. If you go to a school’s football website there is usually a link to the dates, fees and registration. Fees can range from $45 to $200. Several schools will have a separate camps for younger players looking to improve skills, and junior/senior recruits looking to be evaluated by the coaching staff.
- Should you just register and show up? The recruitment process is about building a relationship with a specific school’s coaches. You should have previously sent them an email with your profile sheet and a link to your film (and hopefully got a response…), but before you attend their camp, send them another email telling them what day you will be there (and of course attach your profile sheet and link again!). That way they are specifically looking for you among the 200-500 other athletes that may be there on camp day.
- Sometime during the early part of camp, make sure you take the time to go up to school’s position coach, coordinator and head coach and personally introduce yourself and where your from, so they will now have a face attached to your film and hopefully eyes on you during camp.
- Finally, if you can squeeze in an extra day before the camp sometime, contact the school’s football office to arrange an “unofficial” visit, again to get the coaches eyes on you during camp…
Visits
There are two types of visits a prospective student-athlete can make to a school; unofficial and official. You and your parents can visit a coach on campus at anytime, as long as you paying your own way. These are called “unofficial” visits and can be a big part of your recruitment as most recruits are being asked to commit BEFORE they take “official” visits
Some things to consider BEFORE you schedule an unofficial trip:
- Make sure coaches will be there when you come. They travel a lot so pick a time when your position coach and/or coordinator are there. (Hopefully, you have talked to them before and they have invited you…) Try to avoid taking these visits during the NCAA recruiting Dead Period, as you will not be able to communicate with coaches during that time.
- Talk with your parents and have a rough idea of what you are specifically looking for from the facilities, campus and degree programs. Do you want to go during the school year (tough to do during season…) to see the hustle and bustle of campus, or during the summer when coaches aren’t in the middle of THEIR seasons and can spend more time with you? Take the time to look at everything like dorms and talk to the admissions office.
- The only expenses a college-bound student-athlete may receive from a college during an unofficial visit are three tickets to a home sports event.
- Hopefully you have looked up the school’s roster and have an idea on roughly how many players they are bringing in for your position during your recruiting year. For example, if you are an offensive lineman, and they brought in six last year, they are more than likely only bringing in three or four this year. Conversely, if they only brought in three last year they are looking for more this year and your chances are higher. Checking things like this first helps you save time and money going to a school that doesn’t present a real opportunity for you to play or receive a scholarship.
As far as “official” visits go, like I mentioned earlier most schools want you already committed. If you haven’t committed they will expect you to commit during the visit. An athlete can take a total of five official visits, but unless you are a highly sot after recruit you will more than likely only take a couple.
- As I mention earlier the recruiting process is constantly changing. Previously a recruit could only start taking official visits after Sept. 1st of the athlete senior year. Just this past weekend, the NCAA's new window for earlier official visits opened wide. Beginning with the Class of 2019, prospects are now free to take official visits from April through June of their junior years in high school.
- If you are invited for an official visit, it will be for a 48-hour period. The college can pay for transportation to and from the college for the student-athlete and one adult, lodging, and three meals per day for the student-athlete and his or her parents or guardians, as well as reasonable entertainment expenses including three tickets to a home sports event. Know the NCAA recruiting rules about what you can and can’t accept while there!!
The Decision
Scholarship offers start going out after the college coaches have finished their season in November/December (maybe after bowl season) when the coaches now have time to evaluate the next class. A college programs goal is to try to have most of their commitments done by the start of their new season in August/September. Obviously, the bigger (more successful) a program is, the faster spots will fill up. Don’t wait, get the recruiting process started early!!
I saw a great line from an article I read and can’t put it in any better words, “From the time you commit until you sign, coaches are going to continue to evaluate you and make sure you are who they expect you to be. Every year, athletes who’ve made verbal commitments lose their scholarships because they get into trouble on social media, their grades drop, they get injured or there is a coaching change. Coaches are prepared to offer you a scholarship when you verbally commitment, but that doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want from the time you commit until you sign.
Most of the time athletes sign the scholarship offers promised to them without a hitch. Coaches don’t like to pull scholarship offers because it is a messy process for the school and the recruit, but it can happen and you should be aware.
Your Responsibility: You can’t do anything about losing your scholarship due to injury or coaching change, but you can stay out of trouble and keep your grades up. Don’t relax and think you’re done with recruiting when you make a verbal commitment.”
- If you have been offered either a partial or full scholarship you will be asked to sign a National Letter of Intent (NLI), which is a binding agreement (contract) used to indicate a student-athlete's commitment to play a specific sport for a specific NCAA college/university.
- For D1 (FBS) teams, there are two signing periods, the first in December and the second in February. (All other divisions just have a February signing) Last year 75% of D1 (FBS) rosters where filled during the December signing period. Here is the link to the specific days:
http://www.nationalletter.org/signingDates/index.html
Hopefully, this series of articles has helped some athletes, parents and coaches get an idea of some of the many parts of the recruiting process. It’s not simple anymore, constantly changing and different for every athlete. It can be even tougher if a teenage athlete doesn’t have some sort of support structure to help them. The recruiting process, just like the actual sport, takes commitment, determination and perseverance. There are a lot of things to consider when making this life changing decision, too many to mention here. At the end of the day it is the student-athlete’s decision about the direction of their future, and all we can do is inform, help and guide them down the path.
By Phil Hermanns
Have you ever wondered why some high school football players get looked at, and offered more than other, maybe even better, players? Or why some guys get D1 offers when others don’t? In this three parts series, we will explore the world of college football recruiting from end to end.
Closing the Deal
College football recruiting has changed so much over the last five years, and is continuing to evolve every year. A student-athlete, parents and coaches need to try to stay current in order to give the player the best chance of obtaining a college roster spot and/or a little money for that college education! By now the student-athlete is in the last half of their junior year taking the necessary classes, registered with the Clearinghouse, taking the ACT/SAT, created a highlight film and has sent out emails to coaches. In this last segment we will discuss different aspects of improving your recruiting status and making a choice.
First, keep sending out emails (with the profile sheet and link to your highlight film). Send short update emails to the schools you have previously sent to, maybe simply informing them of an updated ACT score, or even a new personal best on the bench press. Anything to get them (and keep them) looking at you and evaluating you.
Rating
Whether you like it or not, if you follow college football recruiting the you will see everyone throwing around a lot of "star" ratings these days, but what does that mean, and how do you get “rated”?
- There are four major recruiting databases, Rivals, Scout, ESPN and 247 Sports. Rather than trying to explain the complicated process to you, here links to a few real good articles on how the system works:
https://www.cougcenter.com/wsu-foot...n-247-star-rating-system-national-signing-day
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/117345-recruiting-for-beginners-part-i-how-are-players-ranked
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/02/how_are_recruiting_rankings_de.html
- Getting in to these databases is tough to do. For two of the four major recruiting databases Rivals and Scout (Nike), one way to get in is to attend there combine.
https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-camp-series-presented-by-adidas-2018-faqs
https://www.theopening.com/regionals
These two combines are free and you will need your high school coach to send a recommendation for you. There are no college coaches there, but at the bigger ones there are a lot of sports writers (who are the majority of the raters…). They are run like the NFL combine measuring speed, strength, agility etc. and usually incorporate a head-to-head competition also. There are amazing athletes coming from all over the country so if you are truly D1 talent they will see it. It is highly debated whether college coaches care about the “stars” of a recruit, and while the stars may not matter, what these combines ARE good for is getting the athlete national exposure outside of the normal local recruiting area.
- Another way to get “rated” is to search the internet for an email address of one of these writers and send him the athletes film to see if he will give a rating. The success rate of this is low as there are so many athletes request this, but it may be worth a shot.
- Just one final note on combines, there are some “pay-to-play” combines, NUC, VTO, FBU and others that charge from $75 - $100. While you will see how you compare to other athletes, there is not near the national exposure for these types of combines as the big four.
Camps
- In part 2 of this series I had advised sitting the athlete down and creating a target list of colleges. Another use of this list is to determine which college’s camps he would like to attend. When we were going through the process, there were several coaches who wouldn’t even consider my son unless he planned to attend their camp, which can be financially tough the further away from home the college is. To be fair to coaching staffs, most everyone looks good on the 2-3 minute highlight film where and athlete is only putting their best plays on it, so a schools camp gives the coaches a chance to see your size and skill level in person.
- Most of schools conduct these camps somewhere between the end of May and the beginning of July. Some are on the weekend, others have weekday dates. If you go to a school’s football website there is usually a link to the dates, fees and registration. Fees can range from $45 to $200. Several schools will have a separate camps for younger players looking to improve skills, and junior/senior recruits looking to be evaluated by the coaching staff.
- Should you just register and show up? The recruitment process is about building a relationship with a specific school’s coaches. You should have previously sent them an email with your profile sheet and a link to your film (and hopefully got a response…), but before you attend their camp, send them another email telling them what day you will be there (and of course attach your profile sheet and link again!). That way they are specifically looking for you among the 200-500 other athletes that may be there on camp day.
- Sometime during the early part of camp, make sure you take the time to go up to school’s position coach, coordinator and head coach and personally introduce yourself and where your from, so they will now have a face attached to your film and hopefully eyes on you during camp.
- Finally, if you can squeeze in an extra day before the camp sometime, contact the school’s football office to arrange an “unofficial” visit, again to get the coaches eyes on you during camp…
Visits
There are two types of visits a prospective student-athlete can make to a school; unofficial and official. You and your parents can visit a coach on campus at anytime, as long as you paying your own way. These are called “unofficial” visits and can be a big part of your recruitment as most recruits are being asked to commit BEFORE they take “official” visits
Some things to consider BEFORE you schedule an unofficial trip:
- Make sure coaches will be there when you come. They travel a lot so pick a time when your position coach and/or coordinator are there. (Hopefully, you have talked to them before and they have invited you…) Try to avoid taking these visits during the NCAA recruiting Dead Period, as you will not be able to communicate with coaches during that time.
- Talk with your parents and have a rough idea of what you are specifically looking for from the facilities, campus and degree programs. Do you want to go during the school year (tough to do during season…) to see the hustle and bustle of campus, or during the summer when coaches aren’t in the middle of THEIR seasons and can spend more time with you? Take the time to look at everything like dorms and talk to the admissions office.
- The only expenses a college-bound student-athlete may receive from a college during an unofficial visit are three tickets to a home sports event.
- Hopefully you have looked up the school’s roster and have an idea on roughly how many players they are bringing in for your position during your recruiting year. For example, if you are an offensive lineman, and they brought in six last year, they are more than likely only bringing in three or four this year. Conversely, if they only brought in three last year they are looking for more this year and your chances are higher. Checking things like this first helps you save time and money going to a school that doesn’t present a real opportunity for you to play or receive a scholarship.
As far as “official” visits go, like I mentioned earlier most schools want you already committed. If you haven’t committed they will expect you to commit during the visit. An athlete can take a total of five official visits, but unless you are a highly sot after recruit you will more than likely only take a couple.
- As I mention earlier the recruiting process is constantly changing. Previously a recruit could only start taking official visits after Sept. 1st of the athlete senior year. Just this past weekend, the NCAA's new window for earlier official visits opened wide. Beginning with the Class of 2019, prospects are now free to take official visits from April through June of their junior years in high school.
- If you are invited for an official visit, it will be for a 48-hour period. The college can pay for transportation to and from the college for the student-athlete and one adult, lodging, and three meals per day for the student-athlete and his or her parents or guardians, as well as reasonable entertainment expenses including three tickets to a home sports event. Know the NCAA recruiting rules about what you can and can’t accept while there!!
The Decision
Scholarship offers start going out after the college coaches have finished their season in November/December (maybe after bowl season) when the coaches now have time to evaluate the next class. A college programs goal is to try to have most of their commitments done by the start of their new season in August/September. Obviously, the bigger (more successful) a program is, the faster spots will fill up. Don’t wait, get the recruiting process started early!!
I saw a great line from an article I read and can’t put it in any better words, “From the time you commit until you sign, coaches are going to continue to evaluate you and make sure you are who they expect you to be. Every year, athletes who’ve made verbal commitments lose their scholarships because they get into trouble on social media, their grades drop, they get injured or there is a coaching change. Coaches are prepared to offer you a scholarship when you verbally commitment, but that doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want from the time you commit until you sign.
Most of the time athletes sign the scholarship offers promised to them without a hitch. Coaches don’t like to pull scholarship offers because it is a messy process for the school and the recruit, but it can happen and you should be aware.
Your Responsibility: You can’t do anything about losing your scholarship due to injury or coaching change, but you can stay out of trouble and keep your grades up. Don’t relax and think you’re done with recruiting when you make a verbal commitment.”
- If you have been offered either a partial or full scholarship you will be asked to sign a National Letter of Intent (NLI), which is a binding agreement (contract) used to indicate a student-athlete's commitment to play a specific sport for a specific NCAA college/university.
- For D1 (FBS) teams, there are two signing periods, the first in December and the second in February. (All other divisions just have a February signing) Last year 75% of D1 (FBS) rosters where filled during the December signing period. Here is the link to the specific days:
http://www.nationalletter.org/signingDates/index.html
Hopefully, this series of articles has helped some athletes, parents and coaches get an idea of some of the many parts of the recruiting process. It’s not simple anymore, constantly changing and different for every athlete. It can be even tougher if a teenage athlete doesn’t have some sort of support structure to help them. The recruiting process, just like the actual sport, takes commitment, determination and perseverance. There are a lot of things to consider when making this life changing decision, too many to mention here. At the end of the day it is the student-athlete’s decision about the direction of their future, and all we can do is inform, help and guide them down the path.
