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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Recruiting Confidential

by: Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer, American Football Monthly
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ESPN’s Bruce Feldman shares his insight into the methodology of big-time college recruiting

Since 1994, ESPN The Magazine’s senior writer Bruce Feldman (left) has been tracking college football at its highest level. He’s been in dozens of football war rooms and seen hundreds of player evaluations and highlight tapes. He has even had the opportunity to trail some major college programs such as Texas Tech, Miami and, most recently, Ole Miss. He is the author of two books: ‘Cane Munity: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment, and his newest title, Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting, which has been at the top of nearly every sports best sellers list. If anyone knows recruiting, it’s Feldman. Which is why we asked him about what he calls the “intangibles” of recruiting. It’s the inside information that every high school coach should know before having his best players enter the world of college football.

While hundreds of future stars signed their commitment letters in February, a new group of top-tier recruits is on the horizon. With the increasing influence of the Internet, summer camps and combines, high school coaches need to be more informed now than ever before. To help AFM readers navigate the new world of college recruiting, Bruce Feldman shares his insights.

Q: Since you started in this business more than a decade ago, what has been the biggest difference in recruiting that you’ve seen?

A: Because of the boom of the Internet, recruiting has changed quite a bit. There is a ton of misinformation out there now. These kids are becoming celebrities of sorts among these recruiting fans. I saw several instances of kids in my book that lost perspective over the course of the recruiting year as they see themselves as bigger and bigger commodities. I think nowadays it’s more important that their coaches keep their heads level and keep an eye on the people around the recruit because it doesn’t take much to create a circus. Kids think they know “how the game is played,” only they can end up screwing themselves over in the end.

Q: You mentioned the Internet boom. How much attention do recruiters pay to web sites like Rivals.com, Scout.com, etc? Do they use these sites to evaluate talent?

A: When he was at Ole Miss, Ed Orgeron and his staff paid attention to the recruiting sites, but did not put stock in who the sites said was a two-star recruit and who might be a five-star recruit. They trusted their own evaluations, which I think is what a lot of coaches do. There was actually an instance where a defensive lineman who had been committed to Orgeron’s team for months suddenly went from a three-star to a four-star recruit immediately after he switched commitments to LSU. So, I really don’t think you can trust those sites. But the thing Orgeron did like about the sites was the updated stories about what a certain player said about a visit he took to a rival school or about which other coaches might have been calling him.

Q: Do major college coaches still rely on watching tape as the best way to evaluate talent?

A: Most staffs that I’ve been around watched as much film of a recruit as possible. Orgeron wanted sophomore tape, junior tape, tape from the beginning of his senior year, the middle of his senior year- anything he can get his hands on. He even bought a bunch of camcorders so he could send his assistants on the road in the spring evaluation period and had them shoot actual practice footage and even basketball games just to see how athletic these recruits might be.

Q: What exactly do these coaches look for when they watch film?

A: The common things were athleticism, the ability to change directions, explosiveness and effort. Specifically, in the case of defensive lineman, Orgeron looked for “pop” when they stuck. He wanted to see how good they were with their hands if they could disengage from a blocker or not. Was he stiff or can he effortlessly change directions? Does he have good balance and can he keep his feet and does he pursue the ball downfield.

On the other end, Mike Leach knows exactly what he wants from a quarterback and it’s not a great throwing arm. He says arm strength and the ability to zing the ball downfield are nice, but it doesn’t rank near the top of Texas Tech’s list when it comes to evaluating a QB. He looks for accuracy, decision making ability, toughness, quick feet and then arm strength in that order. He wants more to gauge the intangibles like leadership. He always wants to know if other players will play hard for them.

Q: Aside from putting out game tape, what are some better ways for coaches to help their players?

A: I think they have to find a way to get them to go to the college coaches’ camps. These coaches get to see how their kids respond to coaching. Was he coachable? They get to see the kid out of his comfort zone and competing against other elite prospects. The best advice I can ever give to a recruit or his family from having been inside big-time college programs is to get to a summer camp. Not only do you have the chance to pick up some tips, you get a tryout. It’s an audition. Everything the player does on that campus counts.


Take the case of Myron Rolle at Florida State, who is now a Rhodes Scholar. Rolle was a tenth-grader from a prep school in New Jersey who piled into a mini-van with his parents and drove 24 hours to the University of Oklahoma and outperformed every kid in his age group. Bob Stoops actually had to move him up to compete with the seniors and then called him into his office to offer him (according to Stoops it was the first time he ever offered a kid that early). Soon enough, Rivals picks up on the story and the kid is all over the web. He eventually chose FSU, but not before he and his family used these web sites to help market Rolle to ensure he got the most out of his unofficial campus visits. Because Rolle was pre-med, he and his family got each school to show everything they had to offer, not just showcasing their football programs. He sat down with doctors at Miami and chemists at Oklahoma.

Q: What about word of mouth? It seems that fewer and fewer college programs trust the endorsement of a kid’s high school coach.

A: It varies, depending on the school. I think the high school coaches’ take is vital is when it comes to a borderline prospect - the kid who may not have the best size or speed but is very productive. If a coach can really sell a recruiter that a kid is a tireless worker, a competitor and a leader, that kid has a chance. The hardest thing for the college coaches to figure out, now that the recruiting cycle has moved up so far and the NCAA has scaled back on the time colleges can visit with the recruit, are those intangibles that usually only the high school coach might know. Is he tough? Will he turn down a hit? Is he coachable? How sharp is he? Can he learn the system quickly? Those are the biggest questions.

Q: For 2010 recruits, what should high school coaches be doing right now to start promoting their kids?

A: Get their game films out along with highlight tapes so that colleges can have an evaluation tapes made up of the prospects. Get the prospect’s transcript. Then find someone, maybe a football operations person, to follow up and make sure they know the tape and the transcript have arrived on campus. Then get the player to go to the school’s summer camp. p






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