What should you do if you get an athletic recruiting deadline by a college coach during the recruiting process?

Before going into this article, let me quickly point out what a recruiting deadline is.  It can happen in football, baseball, volleyball, or any other sport but I have seen it happen most in basketball.  The smaller the amount of scholarships a sport has, the more prevalent that dead lining will be.  So keep that in mind with what sport you will eventually be going into.

Anyways, a deadline can happen a variety of ways.  The first is that the college may tell one prospect that you have until November 1st to decide.  If you don’t take them up on the offer, they are going to offer another prospect.  The second way it happens is when a school offers two prospects for the same position.  The first one to take the offer gets the scholarship.

What makes the dead lining process so difficult is that even though a school wants you to decide by a certain date, there may be another program that wants to further evaluate you or see on other prospects that they are recruiting.  There may be a small Division I program offering you a scholarship and you have a week to decide but a mid major program in your state may want to see what another recruit does before offering.

You may be next on their list of recruits for an offer (No matter what they tell you, chances are slim that you will ever know for sure) but if that recruits take the scholarship, then you hope that other school has an offer extended to you.  It is a very difficult situation because is this school somewhere that you are settling at?  That is something for you to figure out deep down.

The toughest situation for a recruit is when there is only one offer on the table.  There may be an anxiety to take it because if you don’t, there may be no more scholarships at that level.  This is the time when the recruiting process gets extremely stressful.  You are trying to figure out the best fit for you but at the same time there is a deadline hanging over your head.

So anyways, what should you do if a school says in two weeks, they are offering another kid at your position.  You do have to realize that it doesn’t mean the other kid will commit on the spot.  If you have the opportunity, it may be worth trying to figure out who that recruit is with research through Rivals and Scout.  It depends a great deal on the size of the school and the coverage of the team on those sites but it can be done if there is enough coverage.

What you really should be focusing on is researching the school itself.  Does it have the major that you want?  How is their football program?  Or basketball program?  What type of athletes are they recruiting?  Is the coach going to be there for a long time?  How far away is it from home?  How is the campus?  You may need to push up visits but it is essential that you get as much information as possible.  The more that you know about the school, the more informed a decision you will make.

Outside of that school, you need to figure out where other programs that are recruiting you stand.  There is no point in lying to these programs so you might as well be brutally honest.  Tell them that you like their school but you are close thinking long and hard about recruiting to the school that has given you a deadline (You may want to forget to mention the deadline).  You want to know where you stand in the recruiting process.  Most coaches will want you to wait obviously (They need to have you on the hook if something else falls through).  If they are really serious about you, then they will offer.

Try to speak with all of the coaches on the phone about where you stand with them.  I would keep very detailed notes about what they said and where they say you stand.  Then I would put all of that information together with more about the school offering.  Find some time to sit down with your family and possibly coaches to talk about the schools.  If you feel confident about pulling the trigger, then do so.

This may be a tough decision but if you do not feel strongly about the school, even if it is your only offer, then it may be worth taking more time.  Tell the coaching staff that you want to wait and see if they can extend the deadline.  Some schools will be willing to do that while others will not.  It really depends on the time of year, the sport, and the coaching staff.

If you know that the school has offers out to players at the same position and are only taking one in that recruiting class, this should bump up your timeline even sooner.  If you haven’t visited the campus, try to get there as quickly as possible.  Also try to research the school as much as you can.  It will be tougher but if this is the school you will want, the time you spend in that week makes it worth it.

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