This isn’t your daddy’s football recruiting
In this age of such things as social media and cell phones, elite high school junior and senior football prospects are the ones who are calling all the shots. They command lots of attention. Not to mention, these kids have incredibly high egos that require to be fed on a daily basis.
Football recruiting is now an empire for prospects
I ran across one such elite prospect just the other day. This young man even has his own TikTok account and has over a million followers that hang on his every word! Even though TikTok is not designed to generate money in advertisement sharing, you can however market yourself in different types of brands.
Branding has endless possibilities nowadays for some of these high school football prospects. I can not count the number of the prospects that even have their own YouTube channel and cranking out content on a weekly, or even a daily basis. YouTube channel owners are able to take advantage of revenue sharing through advertisers after they reach a certain number of subscribers. Can you say rich, before even stepping on a college campus to play football?
And let us not forget the brand new game in town. Name Image and Likeness (NIL) has been introduced and will unleash a whole slew of possibilities for the elite football athlete to pad his pocketbook while on his college campus. For example, your college town has an automobile dealership looking for the newest hottest name in town to help boost sales. By NCAA rules, this dealership can now hire said elite football star to promote their dealership.
Sike! I commit to play for your university and now I decommit
Imagine this, if you will. You are a huge fan of say, the University of Texas A&M and you are totally stoked because you have just landed the commitment of the top junior wide receiver in the state of Texas. You celebrate with fellow fans, you heckle your most-hated rival in the state. But hey, don’t get too excited. This prized recruit just pulled a fast one and just decomited to your beloved program not even two months after his commitment.
Huh?! Yes sir. It happens. And it happens much more frequently these days. Did you really think a high school junior was going to keep his word to your school a year out from graduating? It seems more of a publicity stunt to attract more attention to themselves and their brand. Now to be fair, this isn’t always the case. We have to remember these are just 17 and 18-year-old kids. Their minds are spinning faster than a spin-cycle in a washing machine. Many of these kids can’t even decide on which girl to take to the prom. Much less, which college program they want to play at for the next three to four years.
College football coaches turned babysitter
Gone are the days of college football coaches being hired for the primary duty of designing plays and coaching up the players. In today’s society coaches need to add “juggler” to their resume before handing it over to the university athletic director and university president.
Coaches must be able to handle the high-drama and fragile egos of most football recruits. Sore thumbs come with the territory of keeping up with such recruits. Coaches have to learn FaceTime, Skype, and various other video chat platforms. And that is not counting the several travel visits to one’s high school campus for a visit with the prospect and their coaches.
All this work goes into trying to keep your targeted football prospect happy. And we are not even talking about your team’s desired commitment from other players around the state or country. Coaching, these days, is certainly a 24-hour, 365 day job!
Do not marry the football recruit
In today’s society of high school football recruiting it would be just downright foolish and heartache just waiting to happen for any fan of a particular school to fall in love with a commit before he signs on the dotted line. Most recruits, even if they are committed to your school, will continue to flirt with other schools. You could compare it to being in a relationship with one girl, but there is just of a cute girl that keeps smiling and winking at you!
The bottom line here is that following high school football recruiting isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes lots of patience. It takes the requirement to think back to how our young minds were all jumbled up at that age. Then take into account we didn’t have all this technology when we were trying to figure things out way back then. And if you do decide you have the stomach to follow all the excitement of the new age of recruiting, sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the wild ride to National Signing Day!
