Link: The secret to finding players: Don't travel far

[Crimson Surfer]

The secret to finding players: Don't travel far

The decision has been made to keep head coaches off the road during spring recruiting, but that doesn’t mean the process can afford to slow down. Assistant coaches are allowed to be out evaluating football players for 20 days in May and they need to get as much done as possible.

Most of the top players have already been identified and evaluated, but there is still plenty of talent to be found. There is also the PR aspect of spring recruiting. Coaches must get to as many in-state high schools as possible even if they don’t have any prospects just to keep the local coaches happy. You don’t ever want to get the reputation of overlooking the homegrown talent – even if there isn’t much of it – to get players from somewhere else.

 

[Alasippi]

The secret to finding players: Don't travel far

Good post.
My biggest problem with the restrictions on spring evaluation is simply this;
There are SO many kids who fly under the radar of Scout.com and Rivals.com who actually can be outstanding college football players.
Coaches like CNS can pick out these kids in a heartbeat, but only if they're allowed to see them in person. Remember, most recruiting video tapes now are edited to highlight only one or two particular players. That third guy may never be seen now if his high school coach doesn't promote him, which, believe it or not, isn't a guarantee.
Look at Alonzo Lawrence. He wasn't even rated by the recruiting services until late in his senior season. But we got him because CNS had seen him and started recruiting him early, before any of the lazier coaches knew about him.
I just hate to see the possibilty of great kids and prospects getting overlooked because of a dumb rule, so they end up going to Louisiana Monroe's or Appalachian States and turn out to be..."complete surprises", when we could have possibly signed them, if we'd only have known about them.

alasippi

 

[crimson_blood]

Interesting read...I honestly didn't know Terry Bowden could read and write:wink:

But seriously, could you imagine coaching at Hawaii and having no recruiting budget $ allotted for travel to the mainland?? That alone would make it extremely difficult to compete with the rest of the WAC.

We have made some real headway into the state of GA- especially in ATL- the past couple of years...and I admire CNS and the staff for expanding the recruiting horizons and attracting some out-of-state guys in addition to the in class talent.

 

[CHATTBRIT]

Good post.
My biggest problem with the restrictions on spring evaluation is simply this;
There are SO many kids who fly under the radar of Scout.com and Rivals.com who actually can be outstanding college football players.
Coaches like CNS can pick out these kids in a heartbeat, but only if they're allowed to see them in person. Remember, most recruiting video tapes now are edited to highlight only one or two particular players. That third guy may never be seen now if his high school coach doesn't promote him, which, believe it or not, isn't a guarantee.

alasippi

Totally agree with you. There are tons of kids who are missed by the "expert" recruiting services - unless a coach can go and watch the practices he won't find the diamonds in the rough. He may go to see one kid and be impressed by someone he had never heard of before.

 

[IH8Orange]

Interesting read...I honestly didn't know Terry Bowden could read and write:wink:

But seriously, could you imagine coaching at Hawaii and having no recruiting budget $ allotted for travel to the mainland?? That alone would make it extremely difficult to compete with the rest of the WAC.

We have made some real headway into the state of GA- especially in ATL- the past couple of years...and I admire CNS and the staff for expanding the recruiting horizons and attracting some out-of-state guys in addition to the in class talent.

If Hawaii would have just given a bit more effort to appease June Jones and increased the recruiting budget, they would have been able to pull some very good recruits and continued to improve their stock. They got a shot of PR (even bad results on a national stage can reap good results in PR) in the Sugar Bowl and then just wasted it by losing the coach that got them to that point. Just the fact that it is Hawaii is a good selling point. Their style of offense was also attractive to recruits.