Football Recruiting : What is the Truth?

Most people, some time over the next week, will be watching some football!  Whether you are catching a college game on Thursday night, a high school game Friday  night or a multiplicity of college games on Saturday followed by a professional game on Sunday – most of us are affected by football on some level if not inundated by the sport.  What is it about “the boys of fall” that has our society captivated?  Truthfully, Football is nothing short of exciting!

Personally, I have been around this game for over 30 years.  My husband played at our high school then went on to play his collegiate football at Ole Miss.  I also decided to attend Ole Miss on academic scholarship where I served on the Rebel Recruiting staff during our time there.  The game has continued in our family’s life over the years as I have been the wife of a high school football coach and the mother of a high school football player and an NSR Scout.  The game continues on for me personally, as I am now the mom to a D1 football athlete, as our son has begun his collegiate football career.

Why the personal history?  Well, to establish to the reader that when I discuss recruiting, it’s not something I read about or learned on the Internet or picked up from some “organization” that has no personal knowledge of the recruiting process. I lived it when, my then, boyfriend was in high school.  I was dating him when he was being recruited in the mid 80’s.  I lived it on the Rebel staff as I talked with, met with and recruited some of the top prospects of the day.  I have seen the recruiting process over the years as an NSR Scout while assisting hundreds of high school athletes get scholarship offers from all the country.  I have lived the recruiting process as a mother to a highly recruited high school offensive lineman.  And finally, I continue to live in the recruiting world in my role with the world’s largest, oldest, and most respected scouting and recruiting organization, National Scouting Report!

The football recruiting process is, by far, the most complex, complicated and confusing of all college athletic recruiting processes.  Truthfully, the vast majority of recruiting information provided to parents, athletes and high school coaches by the general media is full of myths.  One might ask, “How so?”  Let me start with this example.  How many football athletes does an NCAA Top 10 football program really need to offer in order to get the 25 National Letter of Intent signees for a recruiting class?  Some media sources and so called recruiting experts provide a list of “offers” and give “star” ratings to athletes.  Some of these sources might show that one of these Top 10 football programs made as many as 100 verbal offers to potential student athletes.  100 offers?  Ask this question, do college football programs like Alabama, Auburn, Texas, USC, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Florida State or Notre Dame really make 100 verbal scholarship offers to high school athletes just to sign the yearly NLI signee maximum of 25 athletes?  NO,NO, NO!  The so called recruiting sites, experts and media outlets are providing information concerning recruiting based on what the high school athletes or the high school coaches tell them.  Why?  Why doesn’t the REAL recruiting truth come from the actual college coaches who are supposedly making the offers?  Simply put, the NCAA rules forbid college coaches and their staff members from discussing specific prospects prior to the National Signing Day.  So how do these recruiting sources get “bad” information.  The answer is complicated but here is one major point concerning this that I want to share. “Committable Offers or Non Committable Offers?”  It takes no less than 4 coaches on a D1 football staff to agree to make an official offer to a prospect.  Hours and hours of serious evaluation of that athlete will have taken place before a REAL COMMITTABLE OFFER is made to the prospect.  A position coach or recruiting coordinator may tell a kid, “son, you are an offer type player for us.  We look forward to seeing you at camp and following you this fall.” The athlete hears “offer” and not all the qualification statements attached to what the coach said.  Next thing you know, that young athlete has posted the “offer” all over his social media and called his local media outlet and reported that he was offered.  The truth?  Unfortunately, NO.  A prospect and their family must understand what the truth is about recruiting.  Does the average person know what it means when a college coach asks “does the kid pass the eye test?”  Does the average person know what ” does he play large?” really means.  Does the average person understand the “recruiting box?”  How about the use of the term “war-daddy”?  How about the term “he is long”.  I often wonder just how much a typical parent and student athlete really knows, then I sit down with a family who has a son that wants to play in college and I realize, quickly, they truthfully, are lost because someone has given them so much bad information about recruiting.  Some examples of bad information- A kid needs to attend combines and showcases.
Why? Parents and athletes, college coaches DO NOT care what your results are at a combine!  They don’t recruit “stars”! They recruit football players that really fit into their “recruiting box”.  For example, college coaches tell us all the time, “This is what I am looking for and if the kid don’t fit then I will move on till I find the kid that fits our box.” What does that mean?  It means that a college football staff is looking for a very specific fit to offer their scholarship money to.  So if the coach tells me, “I need tackle bodies, ” I know he will not consider inside guys.  Now, the reality is most people do not understand many of the terms, phrases and lingo I have used in this blog thus far.  Football athletes, parents and high school coaches, recently an SEC coach told us this statement.  He said, “I wish every parent and athlete and high school coach would take the time to sit down with you and get the REAL DEAL education on how football recruiting really works.  We receive thousands of emails, hudl links and phone calls each week from well intended parents, kids and coaches!  We don’t have the time to open or even pretend to evaluate those.  Those really just bog down our process.  Truthfully, we only evaluate the stuff that comes to us from a TRUSTED and PROVEN source!  Thanks for helping us find the kids that can play.”

I can only write so much in a blog!  So, are you really being recruited?  Mom and dad, is your child really being recruited?  Don’t sit there and wonder if you are really being recruited.  Recruiting is not mystical.  You are being recruited or YOU ARE NOT!  Feel free to contact me and I can have one of our scouts talk with you and give you an honest and free evaluation of your athlete.  High school athletes only have ONE opportunity to be recruited.  Don’t let it slip away and one day look back and say, “shoulda, woulda or coulda!”  Get your FREE evaluation.