Recruiting services

[goodjam]

Do coaches really use recruiting or scouting services?

[Brad82]

yes,some. Mostly on regional basis. For a kid in Mass. to be expected to be recruited by say Montana through one most likely would not happen.

[golionsgo]

Do coaches really use recruiting or scouting services?


They use them BIG TIME and in some cases, rely on them to literally scout a player. There is a QB in my hometown of Baton Rouge (Central HS) who was committed to Louisiana Tech and had offers from NW State and Stephen F. Austin. The Louisville coaches were looking for a QB and were looking at the Rivals video database and came across Tyler Wolfe. They were immediately impressed, invited him up for a visit last weekend and he changed his commitment on the spot. Had Rivals not had his video up on their website, he would be going to Louisiana Tech next year.

[Tribe4SF]

Seeing a video on Rivals might peek their interest, but they'd want to see more, and would ask for more. They might find a player on Rivals, but they'll scout him themselves. No school is going to offer a full ride based on a minute or two of video.

[Brad82]

Is there a fee involved? The parents must pay it. I doubt very few schools (if any) pay for a scouting/recruiting service-what for?

[Bub]

I don't think there is a fee for rivals, but to really get attention on rivals you need to go to one of their camps. Which of course does cost money. Season before last our HS had three all-state football players. Two of them were hardly mentioned on rivals, one was, but he sent them a tape and he had gone to numerous camps. These threee went to a D-II, and I-AA schools. The one who went to the camps faring no better than the other two. This last season we had a kid who went to two rivals camps and they report talking to him about his recruiting and talk him up all the time. He was not all-state and is looking at D-II, maybe I-AA or D-III. It seems to me that Rivals is not a neutral service, it promotes those who pay it. Makes sense, but also limits the validity of their opinions.

[Brad82]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-recruitside29jan29,0,2550535,print.story?coll=sfla-sports-headlines

Article in todays paper re. Rivals and others.
Apparently some schools (102?) pay for one of them.
Must be really large schools where fee is drop in bucket.
There are enough overlooked players in Florida,Conn.,N.J.,Mass. and Rhode Island to field 5 good 1-AA teams. College coaches too bull-headed or complacent to look.

[Brad82]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/highschool/sfl-recruit29jan29,0,7890056,print.story?coll=sfla-highschool-headlines

Another article with more detail.

[FlyBoy8]

There are enough overlooked players in Florida,Conn.,N.J.,Mass. and Rhode Island to field 5 good 1-AA teams. College coaches too bull-headed or complacent to look.

That's ridiculous. I mean really. "Too bull-headed" to look for good players? What does that even mean? Not mention the fact that there are a gazillion kids playing football... It's impossible to scout every player.

[golionsgo]

Seeing a video on Rivals might peek their interest, but they'd want to see more, and would ask for more. They might find a player on Rivals, but they'll scout him themselves. No school is going to offer a full ride based on a minute or two of video.


Of course they're going to want to see more video but the question was do college coaches really use the recruiting services and the answer is clearly yes. In the case of Tyler Wolfe, Louisville's interest was piqued enough to invite him up on a visit on a couple of days notice and offered him once he got there. I'm not saying they use the services exclusively and only recruit the players that are on the database, but with the contact limitations and the way the NCAA rules are now, the services are becoming increasingly important.

[golionsgo]

Is there a fee involved? The parents must pay it. I doubt very few schools (if any) pay for a scouting/recruiting service-what for?


I'd be willing to bet that just about every college in America subscribes to Rivals and Scout. They would be crazy not to considering the people that run the sites have more access to the prospects than they do.

[Tribefan]

For the price of less than a cup of coffee a day (not Starbucks) you can subscribe to rivals.com and scout.com. And yes I do just that and I am a hopeless addict.

Both sites even have some coverage of I-AA teams. I noticed that the Villanova site has an active board and they follow recruiting.

There is a ton of intrigue on these sites. Personally I don't really like the rivals makes their evaluations. Mike Farrell, who is one of the well known analysts on rivals is notorious for upgrading certain player's rankings when they commit to certain schools "cough, cough, Boston College". I have read from someone grew up in the same town as Farrell that he was a diehard BC fan growing up. He also flunked out of the major state institution in his home state and later graduated from a directional.

It's also curious because that when some recruits are only getting interest from Mid-majors and mid-level BCS schools a player may be just an ordinary three star recruit, but when they get suddenly get an offer to and commit to a powerhouse they get miraculously upgraded, thus increasing a given school's class rankings.

All of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. AJ Hawk was a mere three star and Braylon Edwards was a two star. But on the other hand Vince Young was a five star one of the top five players in his class. West Virginia's Steve Slaton was ranked very poorly and look at what that kid has done, meanwhile the other running back West Virginia brought in who was a 5 star recruit will be playing for Nassau Community College next year.

[Brad82]

Fly boy 8-you are taking my comment out of context. College coaches (many) are loathe to take suggestions with the rationale "if we haven't heard of him,he can't be any good." Just read the Ft;Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Better H.S. players than you or I being overlooked. What scholarship $$ did you receive and where? Who is your team? Lets compare.

[gsu_beavis]

i had a buddy who worked for a 3rd part recruiting firm. basically he would scout local talent for any sport and try to raise awareness of the athlete. this was normally done for a good high school athlete that was not good enough to get a maor college scholarship, but may fit a piece somewhere small. grades were a big part of this as well. i can't remember the name to save my life, but it is based in the atlanta/roswell area. the parents would pay the bill and there were numerous options on how expensive it could get.

also, found this to be an interesting way to go about recruiting - and it came from a gsu alum. see below from our coba newsletter.

A different approach to football recruiting

The NCAA has pretty strict rules about contacting potential football recruits, but one area where there are almost no rules is cyberspace. The NCAA does not view emails, text messages or instant messages as formal contacts. As a result, an entrepreneur named Steve Kennedy (’92 BBA in marketing) has started a technology company called Blue Chip Athletic Solutions that enables coaches to communicate with prospects and track the effectiveness of this approach.

Steve’s company was featured in a story last Sunday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I have included a link to the story if you would like to read more:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/sports/stories/0115recruiting.html