Super Bowl hero New Orleans Saint Tracy Porter is a great example of why high school rankings really don’t matter. In fact he wasn’t even ranked by Rivals coming out of high school. It didn’t stop him from getting a full scholarship to Indiana. It didn’t stop him from being an All-Big Ten first team selection. It didn’t stop him from being a 2nd round draft pick. It didn’t stop him from picking off Peyton Manning and clinching the Super Bowl.
Bobby Freeman of Snellville GA and Shiloh High School has a 3.62 GPA with 10 AP classes and other honors classes and was on the Gwinnett County GA All-Star Team. He has just committed to play football at Davidson College, and since they do not give athletic scholarships they gave him a HUGE academic scholarship paying over 75% of his tuition.
Bobby was matched with college coaches 5 times, had two separate videos processed, and participated in a group coaching session.
Bobby’s Grandma, Janice wrote:
Thank you for the exposure he got through NCSA!
We at NCSA want to congratulate Bobby on his commitment, and wish him the best of luck at Davidson!
The University of Michigan offering Aundrey Walker a full-athletic isn’t ground-breaking news. The 6′5″ 355 offensive tackle has been receiving offers from colleges across the country. What is ground-breaking is the manner in which he heard from Michigan Coach Rick Rodriguez on his Facebook page.
“I just checked out my Facebook page and Coach [Rich] Rodriguez just sent me a message that I had an offer from them,” Walker reported. “I’m blessed and honored, but at the same time I am staying humble because it can be taken away from me at any time.”
Walker replied to Coach Rodriguez with his home address so he can receive the official offer from the Wolverines in the mail. He said it is likely he will make an unofficial visit to Ann Arbor on Feb. 20 for Michigan’s Junior Day so he can learn more about what they have to offer.
“I’m interested in anybody who is interested in me,” Walker said. “Now that [Michigan] has offered me and shown me that they love me, my interest level is medium to high.”
College Coaches are now actively using Social Media to contact recruits in a meaningful and personal way. Recruits would be wise to:
1) Create Recruiting Specific Social Media Sites, so coaches can easily contact them.
2) Make sure to monitor everything that goes up on the page to ensure it is always professional.
National Signing Day has come and gone, but the ramifications from this week will be felt for years. The important thing to remember is that no one will be able to tell what kind of an impact these recruits will make until they actually step on to the field. In many cases it will take years of development before anyone can tell who actually “won” Signing Day.
However, that never stops every news organization (including NCSA) from making snap judgments awarding National Championships 4 years in the future, and pronouncing coaches fired. The Sporting Blog presented their tongue in cheek, Recruiting Classes that Will Spell DOOM for FOREVER!
3. Minnesota. Like our upcoming #1 school of DOOM, the entire point of Minnesota’s head coach is that he can recruit, and he can’t even do that, really. Minnesota pulled in two-four star recruits, suffered through eleven decommitments, and failed to get Seantrel Henderson despite offering his extremely marginal best friend JD Pride.
2. Miami. A Miami class with 28 commitments in it that has two more four stars than two stars is mindblowing, even given the ‘Canes current middling status. Making things worse are the classes of Miami’s two primary in-state rivals, which owned.
Miami picked up one top 100 recruit. It is in Florida. This is a very bad sign. Even worse: Baylor(!) is a notch ahead of them in star average on Rivals.
1. Illinois. Doctor Saturday covered this in detail today. In sum: this is Zook’s worst class ever, with one four star, and his best class ever just exited stage right without a bowl bid. Rivals has them 70th, 8th in the Big Ten. If Zook couldn’t hack it with actual talent, what’s he going to do with these guys? Probably watch them on TV after he gets fired.
Maybe these classes will eventually be proven sub-par, but that judgment is still years away. UCONN Coach Dan Edsall offers a dose of sanity.
“It’s all very stupid, in my opinion,” he said. “For anyone to go out and rank classes, and to evaluate thousands and thousands and thousands of kids that are 17 and 18 years old, and think they’re going to watch all this film and put a ranking on them, it’s propaganda. And it’s one of the things that’s ruining the game, in my opinion.”
“It’s ruining kids. I just hope some people come to their senses soon and does something about the recruiting process because we’re in this to help young people and this process isn’t helping young people. It’s hurting them.”
Schools like Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Boise State, Utah and numerous others have all gone to BCS Bowl Games with recruiting classes that were laughed at by the “experts.”
Why do I raise these points when even NCSA ranks the top players in America? Recruits need to understand that the only evaluation that really matters is the one they get from college coaches. NCSA uses our relationships with college coaches to ensure student-athletes get evaluated by coaching staffs at schools big and small across the country. We use our recruiting experts to analyze recruits and then introduce them to a variety of schools so they can be evaluated in the only meaningful way; by a College Coach.
The Top 10 Recruiting Classes in America
NCSA’s Top 5 Recruits and the Major Signing Day Themes
The Recruiting process comes down to relationship. NCSA has spent 10 years building these relationships and the following feedback we got today demonstrates the value of these relationships with college coaches.
Your service has been very helpful in our recruiting efforts. It has allowed us to reach out to athletes across the western states that we normally would know nothing about. Your service is the only way I would have known about Joe.
Thank you so much, NCSA has been a great tool and resource. We need a big time DT and OT to fill some voids in our 2010 recruiting class.
I offered one girl a scholarship, and it looks like she is seriously considering it. I’ll give you a list of girls that I am talking to from your site.
Thanks! We have gotten 3 guys this year in no small part due to your service. We frequently speak as a staff about the plethora of recruiting services cropping up. I know that I find your service to be the best and most useful for us. Thanks for the help.
We will offer James right now!!!!!
And these comments from Families demonstrate the value of those relationships to student-athletes.
I officially signed my National Letter of Intent to play football on full scholarship at State University this morning at 7 am. Thanks for the assistance and help from NCSA
Bob has committed to a full athletic scholarship and will sign his LOI today. We appreciate all the effort and help from NCSA.
Josh Thomas heads to Florida State
NCSA Recruiting Expert Joe Burns presented College Recruiting Simplified to Stephenson High School. Today 28 players signed National Letters of Intent
Q1: How many sections are on the ACT?
A1: 4 and an “optional” writing section.
1. English – 75 questions, 60 minutes
2. Math – 60 questions, 60 minutes
3. Critical Reading – 40 questions, 35 minutes
4. Science – 40 questions, 35 minutes
5. “Optional” Essay – 1 prompt, 30 minutes
Q2: How many sections are on the SAT
A2: 3 categories (Critical Reading, Math, and Writing) with 10 sections:
1. 3 Critical Reading Sections
a. 24 questions, 25 minutes
b. 24 questions, 25 minutes
c. 19 questions, 20 minutes
2. 3 Math Sections
a. 20 questions, 25 minutes
b. 18 questions, 20 minutes (includes grid-ins)
c. 16 questions, 20 minutes
3. 3 Writing Sections
To learn more about these tests and how you can maximize your score, go to revolutionprep.com or call them at 1-877-738-7737.
One of the harsh realities of the college recruiting process involves coaching changes. It happens every year. College coaches, who spent years convincing targeted recruits that they should join their program, change jobs…sometimes at the last minute.
Ideally this would never happen, but knowing that it always will, I sat down with Coach Taylor to get some inside advice for recruits.
CK: A coaching change can happen at many points during the recruiting process for a prospect. First, let’s start with the recruits who have already committed to a program when a coaching change occurs. What advice would you give recruits in that situation?
Coach Taylor: The committed prospect has a decision to make about the new staff. Can they fit in the new coach’s system? Is the school the reason for the commitment? Does the new staff want them?
The first thing a committed prospect must do is get on the phone with the new coach and/or visit the new coach if possible to open the line of communication. If the end result is that the prospect is going to look into other opportunities they must act immediately to find a new best fit. Depending on the timing of the coaching change it may be tough to find a new school if they have committed all their scholarships.
Be aware that other coaching staffs will already be calling to see if they can “flip the prospect” as is the common term used in war rooms and get them to decommit. At the same time the new staff will feel they can contact any committed player at other schools as they weren’t involved before and all bets are off.
Just know that anything can happen in this situation and the prospect must make contact with the new staff immediately to see where they stand!!
CK: What about recruits who have not committed but were being pursued or sought after by a coaching staff that experiences a change?
RT: Make contact with the new staff immediately by phone and/or email whichever will be quickest (it’s important to have relationships with others in the sport’s office to give the prospect a contact when coaches aren’t available even if there isn’t a coaching change). Most times a couple of the old staff will be kept on for transition sake… reach out to them.
If the new coaches take a while to get back to the prospect or reach out to the prospect themselves they may not be very high on their priority list. The first thing a new staff will do is solidify the situation with their top recruits!
CK: What advice would you give recruits as a former coach to limit the impact of a coaching change on their recruiting process?
RT: The main thing is choose the school, not the coach!
Also, don’t burn bridges with other coaching staffs, a prospect doesn’t need to be in contact with other coaches, especially if committed elsewhere but be respectful of other coaches in case communications need to be re-opened. The way things work out in coaching, who knows where the coach from a rival school will end up.
CK: Thanks Coach!
Apply for NCSA's Recruit-Match Database or call (866) 579-6272 to speak with an experienced NCSA Collegiate Scout immediately.
