Don’t Get Caught Up in Recruiting Hype
Today is national letter of intent day for high school footballers around the county. This is the time when the uber recruiting guru’s bask in the glory of their own stats.
Numbers are crunched, 40 times analyzed and heights and weights are shouted out from websites, blogs and magazines like carnival barkers at the local fair.
Everyone can get caught up in it. Even yours truly did from time to time I’m sorry to say. Top 100 lists, top 20 recruiting classes and all sorts of meaningless reports will be thrown at us on how USC scored another major recruiting class, Texas is going to be strong, and yada, yada, yada.
The truth is no one knows if a recruiting class is good until they get on the field and play. Even then the final results won’t be known for a couple of years at least.
High school is not college just like college is not pro. The high school stud in his hometown will have to face many high school studs in college. What a kid did under those Friday night lights means nothing at this level.
Acclimation to college life and the workload of being a student athlete have grounded many a sure-fire blue chipper. This year will be no different. There will be can’t-miss players who miss and on the other side of the coin, prospects supposed to miss who don’t.
What it all boils down to is this: don’t put your faith in recruiting rankings and all that jazz. These are 18-19 year olds who need to develop maturity and get used to college life and the transition into adulthood. That can take time.
Certainly it’s interesting and fun to follow from a hobby-like standpoint and it’s definitely important to the long-term sustenance of an athletic program. But a lot of people get way too caught up in it. Even in this age of instant feedback, it’s as inexact a science as ever.
A perfect example of this came in 2003 when Tripp Carroll, considered one of the top offensive lineman in the nation signed with Virginia Tech. He was a can’t-miss; blue chipper if there ever was one.
Guess what?
He missed. Tripp spent one year as a long snapper and then called it a day for his football career. On the flip side, South Carolina recruited a safety rated 85th out of all safeties and given only a two-star rating in that 2003 class.
His name was Ko Simpson and he’s now in the NFL. Go figure.
I guess what I’m trying to say is have fun with it, but don’t take it too seriously. Here at the NCAA Endzone will be putting up our own top 20 recruiting class on Friday, but rest assured, it will be with tongue firmly in cheek.
recruiting, signing day, football
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