NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Starting in late April through the middle of May, colleges and universities are allowed to visit high schools regarding their football talent for the upcoming high school season. Collegiate football coaches are actually allowed to be in the school of a prospect up to two times during this evaluation period. Once to observe the athlete in some type of workout, combine or spring sport, the other occasion to do academic research on the prospect. The great high school athletes will definitely receive two visits even though the college coach is not supposed to talk to the prospect face to face. Suspect players are lucky to see a college coach at all during this six week period. The college coach is also allowed to call a prospect once during the month of May. A good college recruiter will ask some key questions in this first, and probably most important, conversation with the athlete. The recruiter should have a pretty good idea of how much interest the young man really has in the particular college or university by the time the phone call ends. There is a definite strategy involved in asking just the right questions in order to get just the right answers.

The key to having a good recruiting spring is the preparation before the coach actually “hits the road”. Most college staffs would have evaluated some 1500 plus athletes prior to spring recruiting. Strong recruiters use the April/May time period to confirm or eliminate prospects. Confirm that a player is as good as he looks on film or eliminate the prospect that is less impressive in person or has major academic problems.

In some states like Florida, Georgia, Texas, etc., high schools actually have spring football practice. These states attract a very large number of recruiters who have the opportunity to see the prospects actually perform on the gridiron. It gives the college coach the opportunity to see the player “on the hoof”.

By the time spring recruiting is over and the “in person” evaluation made, the process is then taken to a new dimension. Staffs at this point determine which athletes will continue to be recruited and which will be dropped. It is from this point on that the recruiting player pool is steadily reduced to a manageable number as determined by the specific position needs of the college football program.

Bill Conley worked at Ohio State for 17 years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under College Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.