Recruiting-101 Reader Mailbag #1

There is no doubt that the people who come to this website are ones with questions about what they should be doing in the athletic recruiting process.  And while we won’t be able to help every individual situations, we are going to try putting together a mailbag from the questions that readers have posted in our comments.

If you want your own question answered in a future mailbag, only respond to this post.  Again, only to this post if you are looking for a specific answer that we can help you with.  If it is more than a simple question, we do offer recruiting consulting over the phone for longer periods of time (email us at admin@recruiting-101.com for more on that).  Anyways, onto our first reader mailbag!

Before getting started, a special thanks to those who asked the question.  Let me repeat that if you want your questions answered, comment on this post only

How about if my son started/played in every game in a position all junior year that I know he could never play at the college level? For example, my son played O line because that is where the coach needed him (he is 6′1″ and 215lbs) …he’s one the biggest kids on the team.
-Andy

Your son obviously doesn’t have much of a choice in terms of where the high school coach plays them.  Many athletes have to play out of position and would not see that same spot in college.  This does stunt the growth and improvement of an athlete if he would be best used at linebacker but you have to do what the coach says.

If an athlete is good enough, his time to shine will be during the summer college camps (let me stress not during some combine).  I have seen athletes who threw more interceptions than touchdowns at quarterback end up with a Division I offer because they have great potential.  Hopefully in your case, the same thing will.

Ive played a lot at the varsity level along the D-Line, And i will be a senior this season. I have a lot of playing experience but my sophomore year I was only 170 pounds. My Junior year I played Nose Guard and weighed about 210 I played well piling up 38 tackles in only 7 games due to injury. Ive been putting on a lot of weight though and now I weigh 235 hoping to get to 260 by the time the season rolls around. What should I do? I have limited Junior film because of an injury and Ive always been undersized until this year. Should I bother putting together a Junior highlight tape? Or should I just keep putting on the weight, go to some camps this summer and hope for a great senior season?
-Ethan

Regarding the video, the first question is are you doing it yourself?  If not, do you have the budget to do it?  If you have enough highlights on those seven games and the financial resources to do it, then go right ahead.  Putting it together definitely is not going to hurt anything.  If money is a question, hold off and use that for summer college football camps.

The toughest thing about injury and a limited junior year is simply that this is vital for recruiting.  Many college coaches will have moved on to other prospects before you are able to send your senior film. So I would just say wait, make sure you are gaining the weight the right way (that is a lot of weight to gain and the key is gaining lean muscle mass, not just packing on any pounds you can), and try to get some camps.  After your senior year, you can gauge where you stand on the recruiting highlight video.

Would you recommend making a highlight tape for a sophomore who was on varsity but was not a starter?
-haha

Again, this boils down to money and having enough video footage.  How many plays did the athlete make at the varsity level?  Would it be enough to span three minutes of a highlight video?  If the answer is no, then wait.  The same goes for the money situation.  Not all families have a few hundred dollars laying around to use on a recruiting highlight video so waiting wouldn’t be the bad thing.

The advantage of getting it done as a sophomore is so that college coaches can gauge the improvement of an athlete over time.  Sending it out early will help get you on the radar but in the end, the athlete has to be good enough to play at that level.

Question… In general, are redshirted freshmen on scholarship their freshmen year? I am confused!!
-Becca

The term redshirt has nothing to do with a scholarship at all.  What happens during a redshirt year is the athlete practices the entire season but does not play in any of the games (I know there are a few exceptions but I am not going into those know).  College coaches usually use the redshirt on their freshmen athletes so that they can have four seasons following the redshirt year to compete at that level.  Redshirts can go to walk-on, scholarship, and even grayshirt athletes.

Thank you for the e-mails that you send out everyday, we are using the five steps to market my son to colleges. My son’s high school coach made him a highligh video that looks great and has three different angles of each play to look at, but it doesn’t highlight him in any way. He plays inside linebacker which make it a little easier to pick out especially form the endzone view but do you think that will be a problem for college coaches to watch?
-Trey

My feeling is that you should make finding the athlete a no brainer.  Is it worth investing a few hundred dollars to make 100% sure that you are not leaving any question marks unanswered in the football recruiting process?

I have seen athletes earn scholarship after scholarship without highlighting themselves on the plays.  But if your son is a questionable athlete at that level, it is not worth leaving it up to chance.  You want to put his best foot forward at all times and make sure college coaches know exactly where he is on the field.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll try to include them in a future reader mailbag.

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