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As previously mentioned
in other
articles, some coaches begin the recruiting process with
over 5,000 prospective recruits, therefore it takes time to
narrow this down to around 50 prospects, (the number varies
by school). Schools, such as Nebraska, Air Force,
Mississippi and others, have been renowned for offering a
scholarships to hundreds of prospects, while most college programs end
up offering athletic scholarships to forty or fifty sought
after prospects. The number will generally depend on how
many players that are needed to sign and if they are landing
any of these athletes.
StudentBlitz will now go over the
steps coaches usually cover in the recruiting process….
The Questionnaire Phase
The first thing
coaches usually do after building their initial list of
recruits, is send out questionnaires to the prospective
athletes to try to find out more information about them.
These sheets are vital to fill out, but at this point
the coaches may simply be looking to narrow down the
recruiting database. Factors that they may use to do
this may be lack luster stats or bad grades, so the
chances are that once the form is filled out, they will
be taken out of the database or at least downgraded in
the level that they are recruited at (I will discuss the
levels later on).
The coach will usually take 1,000
out of the 5,000 that meet his criteria and what he is
looking for, and will start to show more interest,
sending more letters, and requesting video tape from
these prospects. (I have always reiterated that putting
together a
quality highlight video is something that is
vital in the recruiting process). In general,
500
of those athletes will either not be able to get their hands
on tape or the highlight video is so bad that the coaches
can’t see much, therefore the list is often further reduced
to 500.
The Evaluation Phase
Now the coaches will begin to go
through the highlight videos and judge which
players have the ability to play at their level. It is often
the case that coaches need to be impressed early by your
highlight tape, as they have many prospects to evaluate for
an athletic scholarship and unless you have other offers,
the coaching staff cannot just focus on you.
I have seen underrated
prospect’s highlight videos that wowed me into thinking that
they would receive a Division I scholarship, and as I
predicted they all ended up getting those scholarships and
are attending schools such as Baylor and North Dakota (D1AA).
Before seeing these videos, I would say that the prospects
were flying under the radar.
Now we shall say,
hypothetically, the coach dismisses 300 of the recruits
because they simply are not good enough, now are now down to
200. This is when the coaches should be sending hand written
letters and showing much more interest. While you may be
high on their list, if you have not officially received an
athletic scholarship at this point, you are not among their
top tier of athletes. The coaches take this time to judge
how serious you are about their school and then they will
rank the recruits accordingly. This is needed because if
option A, B, and C all fall through, they need to quickly
respond and look harder at options D, E, and F to see if
they are worth offering.
The Summer Camp Phase
With the top 200 recruits decided, the
coaches will try to bring these athletes on
campus for their
camp so that they can evaluate the prospective recruit in
person. This gives the coaches a chance to see assess you in
person, and see if what you have told them is true, such as
if you really are 6-foot-3, can you handle coaching, and
adapt quickly. It is important for me to note that just
because you are invited to a camp, that does not mean you
are on their top tier of recruits.
After the camp, the
coaches will cross around 100 recruits off their list, who
may just not be good enough or are not what the coaches
expected them to, now we are down to roughly 100. We shall
say that there are 30 scholarships out, back up plans for
the other positions, and the possibility that if you are
among those players you can walk on. These coaches need to
keep the back up options committed to them, incase things
fall through with their top recruits.
There is a quick description of how coaches cut down a list
of over 5,000 to around 100 prospects they are somewhat
serious about. In the end, around fifty get athletic
scholarship offers and the class ends up around twenty to
twenty five players. It does differ somewhat in basketball
but the coaches narrow down their prospects in the same way
and offer as few prospects as they can.
StudentBlitz
can
help you with your
Athletic
resume with a video, which
as discussed is a very important part in you gaining the
scholarship you deserve.
Fill out the above form
and let the journey to the next level start here…
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