Player Hand-offs

High school, college coaches work better together when players move on
by: Scott Kraft
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Recruiting is an interestingly complex part of football that isn’t getting any easier on coaches at either the high school or college levels. It was never easy for college coaches to recruit players, traveling the country relying on tips and grainy videos and news accounts to try and form a college football roster.

While the Internet has made it easier to find out information about players, an explosion of ranking lists and fan Web sites has also made it easier than ever for fans to form their own assessments about incoming recruits. That the information may not always be reliable doesn’t play to anyone’s favor, but the end result is the recruiting process is under more of a spotlight than ever before.

There’s also an array of companies that will package data about a prospect and deliver it to colleges. In some cases, the college program pays for the service while, in others, the high school player pays a company to “package” him for college programs.
Despite the distractions, recruiting is still about a high school program and a college program coming together so a player can move on to the next level. It’s still a relationship-based process, involving a player, his family, a high school coaching staff and a college coaching staff.

As for the coaches, in some cases they’ll work together one time and never again. In others, they’ll form relationships that could result in more players from that high school moving on to play for a certain college.

High school coach plays key role

College coaches and recruiting specialists can only be in so many places and are always seeking to maximize their time on the road. As a result, the high school coach can play a huge role in launching a successful recruiting experience for his players.

“I think we rely on the high school coach tremendously. There are a limited number of evaluations we have on any player,” says Will Muschamp, defensive coordinator at LSU. “We spend a lot of time with the high school coach talking about intangibles, character and athleticism.”

As an assistant with top program, Muschamp concedes he has the ability to see more players than a colleague at a smaller school may have, and its helpful.

“Bigger schools have bigger budgets – we find out who the players are,” Muschamp says.

David Needs, wide receivers coach at Division II Carson-Newman in Jefferson City, Tenn., doesn’t have a top budget and he’s only got 25 scholarships to work with every year. He understands recruiting from both perspectives. A Delaware native, the only reason he played at Carson-Newman was because his father sent the school a tape.

Because Carson-Newman recruits nationally, Needs is always looking for information. The place he prefers to get it, however, is from the high school coach or the player.

“I’ve preferred dealing with the head coach or the player,” Needs says, referring to prepackaged information companies do for high school players. He says he does use them, and they have some value, but he also said developing good relationships with high school coaches can pay dividends in the form of more players down the line.

Nebraska wide receivers coach Ron Brown will use recruiting services to “get an early look” at a prospect.

“The days are over when you wait until the senior year for a blue chipper,” Brown says, adding that a high school coach with a great junior prospect can get deluged by college recruiters, so getting information out on players as early as possible helps manage the flow.

“If a high school coach can put together a good file on a young man, or even a nice highlight tape,” Brown says, adding that providing proper contact information is important, it keeps recruiters from “chasing ghosts all over the country.”

Muschamp also says the high school coach can help by making sure the players grades are all in order, and the player is in contact with the NCAA to make sure he is declared eligible. He advises having students take the standardized tests as early as possible, to offer the most chance for getting the best score.

On the field preparation also important

In addition to the off the field issues, college coaches also said high school coaches can do some on the field things to help their players prepare to play college ball. One important one is not to do too much to accommodate a top prospect outside of your system.

“The high school program is not a feeder for colleges. They’re there to win games,” Muschamp says. “Play the players where they need to play to win games. Don’t try to project them as college football players. That’s our job as college coaches.”

Needs says high school coaches can help better prepare prospects for the college game by working on basic skills.

“Carson-Newman coaches spend a lot of time on skill work and preparation,” Needs says. “The amount of time a player spends on skill work before getting to college is important.”

And if a player gets a lot of attention as a junior, don’t let him slack off.

“A lot of recruits are really good in their junior year and get a lot of attention, then slack off in their senior year and don’t work as hard because they don’t want to get hurt,” Muschamp says. “The player winds up not getting offered at places where he could have been offered.”

Honesty, the best policy

Nebraska’s Brown says both high school and college coaches have to bring a lot of integrity to recruiting for it to work its best.

He said that while its important for high school coaches to be upfront about their players, a lot of colleges “throw out offers like leaves,” keeping the prospect interested as long as possible before they renege on the offer and go another way.

Ideally, he would like to see high school coaches, college coaches and prospects keep open lines of communication about what schools are interested in a player, what schools have made offers to a player, and how the player, his family and high school coach feel about the situation.

After all, we are talking about 18-year-olds.

“All of that information puts tremendous pressure on a high school kid, the number of phone calls, the amount of pressure,” Brown says. “The high school coach, the kid, his family and the college coach should all have the highest level of information and be able to weed out the other stuff.”

As for Needs, he says he has come across coaches who recommend undersized players on the belief that the linemen aren’t as big in Division II. He also says he has seen coaches shave a little bit of time off a player’s 40-yard dash and some who exaggerate a player’s size. The effect, he says, is it is more tough to build a relationship with the coach. Besides, it’s not so hard to clock a 40.

“Look, we can have the kid run a 40 on tape, if the coach thinks he’s legitimate,” Needs says. “We can clock the time off of the tape.”

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