The Recruiting Wire 4.23
April 23rd, 2008 - bySpring time in college football means one thing for die hard fans: Spring Practice. Schools with a rich football tradition have been filling the stands in record numbers lately for Spring Games. 80,149 at Nebraska, 78,000 at Alabama, 76,000 at Ohio State and 73,000 at Penn St. are just a few of the larger crowds.
Coaches are increasingly using these crowds to showcase a school’s rich tradition to recruits. Alabama’s Nick Saban has long believed that these spring games have helped him haul in top recruits at Michigan St., LSU, and now Alabama. Alabama set the unofficial spring game record attracting 92,183 fans. One of his recruits spoke to Sports Illustrated about his experience.
Brentwood (Tenn.) Academy offensive lineman Alex Bullard visited Notre Dame and Alabama on each school’s spring game weekend, and he also said the crowds, while impressive, likely wouldn’t factor into his decision. Bullard, who took the ACT on April 12, didn’t arrive in Tuscaloosa until the spring game had just concluded, but he said a Saturday night spent hanging out with Tide players and signees helped give him a better picture of the program. He said an earlier trip to Tennessee for a regular practice proved equally informative.
A recruiting advantage also helped Florida’s Urban Meyer overcome his initial misgivings about allowing ESPN to televise the Gators’ spring game on April 12. While Florida had several dozen recruits packing the south end zone bleachers, Meyer also wanted to reach the recruits who couldn’t make the trip to Gainesville.
“At first I didn’t want to [televise the game], but recruiting is such a major player,” Meyer said. “It’s the bloodline of our program, and if they’re not here, they are going to be somewhere else, and we want people to see this great campus.”
Look for other schools to follow suit, and look for schools to continue to try to break spring-game attendance records in the name of recruiting. This year, Ohio State officials tried to get more than 100,000 to pack the Horseshoe, but rain scuttled the plan. The forecast wouldn’t have mattered at Nebraska, where scalpers charged some fans $95 a ticket to see the Cornhuskers practice. Nebraska coaches hope those who did pay made an impression on the few dozen high-schoolers who attended as guests of the program. One such guest, Frisco, Texas, quarterback Ryan Mossakowski, came away impressed.
“When we got there, some of us recruits got to go down on the field,” Mossakowski told Rivals.com. “It was crazy. They had [more than 80,000] people in the stands. People who I didn’t even know were coming up to us saying ‘hi’ and making conversation. It was awesome, getting to experience what the players do every Saturday.”
The importance that coaches place on these events as a recruiting tool should show recruits the importance of attending them. Visiting a school unofficially is one of the best ways to get a feel for a program and let a coach know of your interest.
This isn’t just true of BCS football programs. Attending practices, games and scrimmages as well as taking unofficial visits can give a recruit real insight to the way a program operates. Learning all you can about a school can help you find the right fit.
