NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Many times when I talk to recruits and their families they are stunned when I ask them if they have received any scholarship offers yet.

Their usual response is, “What offers?  The senior season hasn’t even begun yet! The coach can’t even call yet!”

They fail to recognize that a college coach can actually offer a scholarship at any time they want.  The recruiting continues to accelerate to the point where many athletes receive scholarship offers well before a coach can call them.

Yesterday, the college football recruiting process officially crossed a new line when a 13 year old (take a minute for that to set in) committed to Tennessee.  Evan Berry the younger brother of Tennessee star Eric Berry has decided to follow his brother to Tennessee despite not playing a down of high school football..

“Yes, I committed to Tennessee,” Evan said. “It’s the only college I know right now and it seems the best for me. My dad went there and my brother is there now. I know I can do the same things there. I have a real friendly relationship with the coaches there. I know I don’t know them too well but I know I will have plenty of time to get to know them.

“I want to play in the secondary and I want to play for coach (Monte) Kiffin.”

Is this an extreme case?  Of course.  But, it represents an overall trend that is very real.  Unless student-athletes are at the head of the curve they will likely far behind.  Not taking the recruiting process seriously at an early age can cost a student-athlete an opportunity to play at the next level and thousand of dollars in scholarship dollars.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 9:07 am 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.