The Recruiting Process: How To Improve Your Chances

Knowing Your Odds

• There are 119 D-1A schools. Now multiply that number by 25 (the maximum number of scholarships each school is allowed to give per year) which equals 2,975. That’s the maximum total number of D-1A scholarships available in the country for each high school class. But wait, not all schools give out all 25 of their available scholarships each year and some of those scholarships (about 25%) go to junior college players. So you are probably looking at closer to 2,500 scholarships available to each high school class.

  

• At the time of this writing it is February 8th, 2010, and the number of scholarships left available for the class of 2011 is probably less than 2000.  That’s because colleges started giving out early offers to the class of 2011 back in September 2009.

• The Nebraska class of 2010 had 6 D-1A offers and the 2009 class had 8.  That’s an average of 7 D-IA scholarships per year in the past two years.

• Currently, the Class of 2011 has two D-1A offers. So most likely–based on our average of 7 per year–only 5 more Nebraska high school players will get a D-1A offer.  Will it be you?

How Colleges Decide Who To Offer

From this point on and through the end of the summer, colleges will base their decision to offer a prospect based on:

1. Film Review.

2. What they discover through the Evaluation Period.

3. A Prospect’s performances at camp.

The Evaluation Period

Colleges are always evaluating talent but the official Evaluation Period occurs during the month of May. it is during this month that the NCAA permits college coaches to visit high schools and evaluate a prospect’s athletic potential and GRADES. They are not permitted to speak to the prospect but they are allowed to talk to coaches, watch a prospect participate in practices and/or sporting events and review high school transcripts.

A lot of what they discover during the Evaluation Period and from a prospect’s performance at subsequent summer camps will determine how high up on their recruiting boards his name will be appear. A name placed high enough will earn an offer or at least further consideration.

HINT: Know the timeline and important dates of the official NCAA Recruiting Calendar (see here).

After summer camp, a prospect’s final chance for a D-1A scholarship is to perform extremely well on the playing field during his senior year.

Most All Prospects Are Identified and Ranked By the End of Summer

By the end of this summer most all of the potential class of 2011 prospects in the country will have been identified and most of the D-1A schools will have offered and filled a very substantial portion of their available spots for the class of 2011. Some of the top D-1A programs will have filled practically all of their needs by this time.

Typically in Nebraska between 2 to 3 additional D1A scholarships will be given out between the end of the summer and signing day in February. The colleges will base their decisons on the evaluation of senior season film.

D-IAA colleges start their process slightly latter than the D-IAs but they are know to make early offers too, The D-IAAs main focus is to capture as many of the top prospects that do not get picked up by the D-IAs. D-II and NAIA schools will pick from what is left over from the cream of the crop of prospects that the D-IAs and D-IAAs left behind.

KEY POINT: This is why it is so extremely important for an athlete to be identified as a D-1A prospect during this process—it greatly increases his chances of getting at least a scholarship offer from a D-IAA, D-II or NAIA school.

Understanding Recruiting Services and Media Role In Recruiting Process

Love them or hate them recruiting services like Rivals, Scout, Max Preps and others play a major role and provide a valuable service to the recruiting process. College coaches may say that they  don’t pay attention to these services but fans, local papers and their own College media outlets sure do! Just read the info on any college site about a prospect that has committed to their school and the first thing they talk about is how many stars he has or where they rank nationally. Even college coaches will boast about a player’s ranking.

Ranking Prospects From Each State

Like the colleges, the top national recruiting services have already identified most of the country’s top prospects in the class of 2011 and have begun to rank them. Now their function will be to find and rank the rest of the top prospects from each state. Recruiting services accomplish this task by visiting high schools, talking to coaches and/or prospects, monitoring camp visits, scouring news papers and web sites for information, and–most importantly—by evaluating film.

Like college coaches recruiting services are always monitoring talent, but around March they will begin in earnest to discover the top talent in each state for the class of 2011 so that they can produce and release their prospect rankings for each state by mid summer.

Hint: A good indication that Rivals.com thinks you are a D-1A candidate is if they ask you for a highlight film–they need your film to display on their site.  They won’t ask for it if you don’t fit the bill!

Prospects rated among the state’s best stand a far greater chance of receiving D-IA and D-IAA offers. It’s not a perfect process but it is the process. Each year there are always at least a half-dozen high school players in Nebraska that will surface to the top after the initial state rankings come out in the summer. And each year there are always two or three ranked players that do not pan out.

How to Prepare and Improve Your Chances Of Being Recruited

Big Business and NCAA Guidelines

Understand first that college football is multi-billion dollar big business and the object for head coaches that are are paid handsomely—even at the D-IAA and D-II levels–is to win games. Therefore, they are looking for the best athletes they can secure in order to hold on to their jobs.

The NCAA puts limits on how many players a college can offer per year (it’s a little more complicated than this but 25 is the max number of scholarships a D-1A  college can offer per year). More importantly, the NCAA places minimum academic requirements and standards that each student must meet before he can enroll at a university under a student/athletic scholarship. The NCAA Clearinghouse is established to set these guidelines and to monitor all athletes that receive scholarships for athletics.

If you are in the class of 2011 and you are seeking a football scholarship you need to know—RIGHT NOW. where you stand academically. Get with your school counselor and find out where you stand. And if your grades and core course credits are not good enough you need to develop a plan of action—RIGHT NOW! You still have a year and a half to get your act together if your grades are not in line. But that means summer school and less time hanging out with your friends.

If you don’t know where you stand academically, the college coaches that are recruiting you will find out exactly where you stand in May.  They will not seriously pursue you if they find out your grades and/or ACT/SAT test scores will not be good enough to pass the NCAA Clearinghouse standards by the time you graduate. However, if they do discover you have bad grades but you at least have a plan of action that you are already working on to improve your scores they will still keep you under consideration.

Be Prepared With Your Film

To determine whether or not you can play football at the college level, the first thing a college coach will wants to see is your film. Nowadays, more college coaches are asking to see highlight film first. That’s because by seeing your best stuff up front they will know right away whether to spend more of their valuable time looking at your game film. So have a highlight film ready and know which game film(s) you want them to see.

Make Plans to Attend Camps

Non-college affiliated national camps like NIKE have posted their schedules. Some of these camps are open to everyone and some are by invitation only. Attending one of these camps before summer is a good way to increase your exposure—but do not go if you are not prepared to perform at your highest level.

HINT: Biggest mistake high school players make is solely concentrating on getting bigger and stronger during the winter months. That’s a throwback concept from the good old days. You will serve yourself better if you concentrate on getting quicker, faster, more explosive and becoming more flexible.

Learn how to run a forty yard dash properly: Just learning how to line up right and working on your start will at least shave one tenth off your time.  Practice running the short shutle to get lower times and learn and practice the other drills that colleges will have you perform at camp. 

You don’t have to attend a Nike camp but you better attend at least a couple of college camps during the summer.  Again–be prepared to perform at you highest level! An outstanding camp performance could earn you a scholarship on the spot. Understand that they will not only be examining your athletic ability at these camps they will also be looking at your attitude, effort and leadership qualities. They will be checking out everything you do from the way you walk to the way you interact with the staff and other competitors.

Remember that recruiting services and other media outlets will start calling and/or visiting with you and or your coaches in March. And college coaches will be coming to your school in May– be prepared to be at your best and have your film ready!  The recruiting services will want a copy of your highlight film.  The recruiting services and the media will also be evaluating all the things the college coaches look for too. So always be at your best.

And Good Luck!