RECRUITING SCHOOL: College football recruiters give advice in Twitter Spaces event
HOUSTON - The recruiting game can be a tricky and trying one.
There are tons of questions along the way. Especially now with the NCAA Transfer Portal playing such a large role in it, a lot of high school football recruits are left with more questions than answers these days.
On Tuesday, headed up by Rice Football Executive Director of Player Personnel & Recruiting Innovation Marco Regalado and Whittier College Defensive Coordinator Tony Calijean the first Recruit School Twitter Spaces was held featuring recruiting perspectives from every level of college football.
More than 2,500 people had tuned into the more than an hour and a half recording by Wednesday morning. Regalado were joined by Oklahoma's Director of Personnel and Recruiting J.R. Sandlin, Maryland's Director of On Campus Recruiting Patty Ohanian, Austin Peay Director of Recruiting Mason Robinson, Allan Hancock College Linebacker Coach Mike Pomfret and Minot State University's Mike Famiglietti to discuss a variety of topics.
VYPE has gathered up some of the best information from the night and compiled it into one spot. This series will continue every Tuesday night through the month of July.
Thank you for the 1K+ who tuned into Recruiting School
A lot of great gems in there. Been in this game for 12+ years and I learned some good stuff tonight
Listen to the rewind here:
https://t.co/EzxyB92Uzx
— Tony Caljean (@coachkage) July 6, 2022
When does the timeline start for recruiting?
“Once you start playing high school football, once you start initiating having some film, that’s when people are going to start taking interest and truly start evaluating that film. For a timeline, once you start playing and have some film, I would tell you right away during the season to start making highlights of those cutups. A two-game cut-up, a three-game cut-up … You would want to be making those cut ups right away once you start playing some high school varsity football. That’s the competition coaches will be evaluating. Once you have that film, I always recommend sending it out in a five-hour radius because that is driving distance … Then send it to every school that offers football the moment you start playing. Send it out to every school that offers football in that five-hour radius, maybe it’s a seven-hour radius if you need more schools. But it should give you 40 to 50 schools that offer college football in every division." - J.R. Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)
“For us, it’s going to be that junior [season] fall. We want to see you making a contribution to your varsity team. Someone who is showing leadership abilities. We are going to recruit you all that junior year essentially going into that Spring. To be a winning FCS program, we must go against the big dogs. We have to recruit against the Power 5s and the G5s if we want to be playing competitive football. We’re going to cast a large net of players that are all quality players … We know what we can offer.” - Mason Robinson (Austin Peay Football)
“The junior college approach, right now myself and most junior college coaches in the country we’re looking at ‘23s. We’re looking at players going into their senior year of high school … If you are about to be a senior and you don’t have offers, you might want to begin thinking JUCO football, because that’s what we’re here for. During the season we’re in contact with players, we don’t have blackout periods, so we’ll build our boards. Really limited contact but we do want to see your tape. In the Spring is when we really turn it up, that’s when we start reaching out to our board." - Mike Pomfret (Allan Hancock College Football)
“NAIA is a unique beast. For the best comparison is it is a combination of the DII and DIII model. We understand most athletes are not going to go professional out of this. We have had NFL scouts come through our programs that I have been at. But for the most part we embrace we are going to improve you as human being first and foremost. Then we’re going to have that translate to on the field success.” - Mike Famiglietti (Minot State University Football)
Advice on Game Film/Highlight“I think the best thing when making film is understanding who is my audience? What is my film for? Is it for entertainment or is it to get scholarship offer? If you are making it for a scholarship offer you are piecing it together for the eyes of the evaluator. For example, if you’re a running back so many times you see a running back put sweep right, sweep left, sweep right, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. That’s great. We saw what? We saw that you can get on the edge and run to the endzone. But what are all the attributes that a running back must have? We never saw you block; we never saw you run in between the tackles, we never saw you catch the ball, we never saw you pass protect, we never watched you make someone miss in open space. There’s a lot more factors that go into making your film than just a few wow factors.” - J.R. Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)
“If it is the Fall, I would highly recommend sending [film] on a Friday. That is travel day for most college football programs. They are on buses or are on planes and they are sitting by their phone. That’s when they can get to a lot more of the messages.” - J.R. Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)
Advice on Social Media
“What can you do to get noticed? Social media a great tool. I’ve had kids reach out on LinkedIn. Persistence is a big key just because our DMs do get flooded. As a student-athlete your stuff can get put towards the bottom but every time you send a new message you get to the top. Find ways to be creative ... You want to be strategic with who you are tagging. There is a different between persistence and spam. You don’t want to be the kid who is spamming everybody. Don’t try to tag 30 coaches in one tweet.” - Marco Regalado (Rice Football)
“If you are a student-athlete looking to get recruited, I suggest the only content you are certain about posting should be football related. Anything else you like, retweet, or tweet out, you need to think long and hard about it. If you are on this platform trying to get recruited, we’re going to scroll through your feed. If we’re following you, what you like will pop up on our feed. I’ve fallen off recruits who I was following because there was content popping up on my social media that I don’t want to see just because they liked it.” - Mike Pomfret (Allan Hancock College Football)
“Social media is a big clue whether that is follows from staff or coaches. I think more staffs are getting more savvy with different types of social media, so it is not just Twitter anymore. It’s TikTok, Instagram and even LinkedIn.” - Patty Ohanian (Maryland Football)
Advice on being Authentic in Process
“Be authentic. Who are you? I want to know your personality. If you’re a class clown, funny, fun-loving guy, I want to see that from you. I think that’s awesome and something that you can bring to the table and be a part of the team with. If you’re more reserved, that’s great too but I want to know that. I want to know who you really are. I don’t want to know the same jargon and recruiting slogan you are giving to every other school.” - Patty Ohanian (Maryland Football)
Questions that College Coaches are Asking about Recruits
“If these college coaches are talking to their coaches, they are not asking if they can play football. Its no different than the NFL scouts. They can see it with their own eyes. They are asking does he show up on time? How is he in the weight room? How is he in the classroom? Does he come prepared? Let me see his notebook, does he take notes? How much film does he study? How does he study? I think they have to understand that they’re not asking about athletic play, they saw it with their own eyes, that’s why they’re there. They’re trying to find out the person who they are. At the end of the day that’s what you’re dealing with as a coach.” - J.R. Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)
