A couple of years ago I wrote an ebook on recruiting. I feel that I have a pretty good perspective on the process. I am a former high school coach that had top athletes recruited to every level, from NAIA to the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). I also coached college football for 14 years (University of Central Missouri and William Jewell College) and was on the other side, actively recruiting and signing some of the best athletes in the country. I am also a father, whose son played high school football and observed that aspect of the process as well.
Drawing from these experiences, I put together a guide to the recruiting process. I will periodically post excerpts from my book to this blog. You will be able to find them all under the “Recruiting” Category on the side panel. The name of the ebook is , “How to become…. Wanted…. And Rewarded (Take Control and Market Yourself -The Complete Guide to a Successful College Recruiting Experience)”.
Here we go—
College football recruiting is like a crapshoot. Anyone that tells you anything different is, well, probably trying to recruit you. Every year there are athletes that no college recruits or offers a scholarship to, who end up being stars . And every year there are players, touted as “sure things”, who are given scholarships but never live up to their hype. Lets look at the odds.
There are about a quarter of a million high school seniors who play football each year. At any one Division I-FBS (Div I-A) football program there are only about 20 scholarships offered in any single year. That is about 1 : 12,500 odds …not the kind of odds you want to take to Vegas… or bet your (or your son’s) future on!
The reality of the situation is this …. If your goal is to become a “5 star” recruit and sign a letter of intent to the University of Alabama, then this ebook is probably not for you. If fact, if you have the realistic chance of being classified a “5-star” recruit – you probably will not need much help becoming a “wanted man”. This ebook is for the rest of you out there… the majority of you out there. The players that want to play college football… that want to be – WANTED…and Rewarded – with some scholarship assistance to help pay for college.
At the NCAA DI FBS level there are about 119 schools that play football. They are allowed a maximum of 85 scholarships to use in their programs. That is 10,115 scholarships that are being used by DI FBS football athletes.
But wait…only a maximum of 25 scholarships can be awarded by a school each year. So now that number is down to 2,975, and a “normal” recruiting class for a DI FBS school would be about 20 . So now the magic number is around 2,500 scholarships available each year.
Remember about 250,000 high school seniors play football each year. So that puts you in a pool with a 1:100 ratio……1 FBS football scholarship for every 100 high school seniors playing football. Still not odds worth betting the bank on! Since you aren’t going to (realistically) decrease the number of seniors playing football each year, the first way to increase the odds in this crap game is to increase the number of scholarships in the “pool”. And this is the first step in “rolling” the winning dice. Tomorrow I will share some thoughts on how to do this!
In addition to these written posts, I have recently launched my YouTube Channel that deals specifically with the recruiting process. The channel can be found here : The YouCanDoMore YouTube Channel, and the complete playlist can be viewed here.
If you have any questions, please comment or email! I will respond.
Jeff Floyd – youcandormore1@yahoo.com