Wednesday is the big day for football recruiting across the NCAA. From Power 5 conference teams, you can expect to see a lot of hoopla online and on television. Teams will host NFL draft-style recruiting extravaganzas as they announce their 2020 recruiting classes.
My football clients at Anachel will host all-day events at on-campus recruiting lounges loaded with coaches, athletic administrators, institution brass, top donors, former NFL players and media. They also will show behind-the-scenes special moments, such as their head coaches welcoming recruits and their families to the team via FaceTime, NFL draft-style podium announcements of each player, and press conferences with head coaches.
College football has two signing periods, but Wednesday is the big event — one that often determines coaches’ recruiting aptitude and sometimes the future of the program. Coaches spend countless days on the road each year, meeting players at their homes and high schools. They have smooth-talked parents and interviewed recruits’ youth coaches, pastors and influencers in search of relevant background material. They have stood on sidelines video-taping practices and workouts, measuring kids against cinderblocks, to determine if they want the player and, more importantly, whether they can land the player. Down the stretch, coaches have been working the phones like the salesmen from “Glengarry Glen Ross,” trying to get valuable commitments.
Although my husband, Chuck, has not been able to recruit for the Wildcats, I picked his brain about modern day recruiting versus what life was like 20 years ago.
“Recruiting has become the river of success for a program. It has to keep flowing in the right direction for the team to be consistently competitive. And coaches have to work every single day with a 24/7 recruiting mindset to make that happen,” he said. “For me, character matters. I want players who show toughness, leadership and have a football instinct — and size matters for certain positions — and of course they have to love the game. If I can feel that, I can develop them to be competitive. For me, it’s critical to have a ‘build a team’ not ‘collect players’ philosophy. But, hey, that’s just my two cents, and a lot of coaches know a heck of a lot more about it.”
A head coach in the Big 12 Conference told me that “we can have 200 offers to sign 25 players or an 8-to-1 ratio, and we have to own our area — 45 miles of our campus.” Different coaches in the Power 5 conferences have different recruiting philosophies.
Some head coaches hire good recruiters who aren’t great coaches. They can sell the program but not coach the fundamentals of football. A Pac-12 head coach told me that “coaches not only need to be good recruiters, but they need to develop the three-star and four-star players on the field. I can teach recruiting, but I can’t be in every position room to see if a guy really knows ball. You think he does, but if he doesn’t, and it’s smoke and mirrors, it will kill you in the long run.”
Maybe NCAA football coaches have too much to do. NFL teams have entire personnel departments that scout college players on the road and watch hundreds of hours of tape. Once NFL scouts evaluate players, they turn the players’ stats, facts and background information to the pro coaches. Those coaches review, watch film, rank, help draft and coach the players. Evaluation is a vital piece of a pro coach’s job minus the thousands of frequent flyer miles, constant communication and social media interaction with high school players. NCAA coaches have to be both scout and coach.
Recruiting keeps me busy
My team at Anachel has been working on the final minute-by-minute signing day breakdowns, presentations, speeches, talking points and recruiting videos for head coaches. Our guys have used them on the road with players, and now we’re kicking it up a notch for Wednesday. Our phones have been ringing at 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., as those are coaches’ hours. There’s no 9-to-5. Be it state-of-the-art multimedia presentations, podcasts, social media campaigns for recruits to grow their brands and earnings, or digital tracking to see who’s going where — it’s never been busier or a more blessed time for us than this year helping coaches.
I am so grateful for my creative team and our football program clients for pushing the envelope with techniques and technologies to lure recruits and to help programs announce their 2020 class with a bang. And, I’m in awe of how hard the creative teams, SIDs and coaches are working to get out of the status quo and make their programs stand out. It really is a big business, and head coaches are CEOs of multi-million-dollar businesses.
Celebrating the season
Friday night, Chuck and I escorted Nanci Kincaid Tomey to Arizona’s end-of-the-year banquet at the Fox Theater downtown. Our pal Nanci presented the first-ever Dick Tomey Award, given to the player who most personifies the values that Coach Tomey stood for. This year’s winner was senior defensive back Jace Whittaker.
Cody Creason was Campbell Trophy semifinalist, which is essentially the academic Heisman. Creason graduated from the UA’s Eller College of Management and is already pursuing a master’s degree in accounting. J.J. Taylor won the Tedy Bruschi Award and was named offensive MVP, Lorenzo Burns was named defensive MVP, and Derrion Clark was special teams MVP. Cedric Peterson won the Weight Room MVP award, and Jashon Butler and Dante Smith won the offensive and defensive scout team awards.
Saturday was a busy night in Tucson, with events including the Arizona basketball game against Gonzaga and the annual Angel Ball, but it was great to see Arizona President Robert C. Robbins and athletic department staffers in the house to support our seniors and their families.
Tucson has some of the most remarkable ways to celebrate the holiday season. One of my new favorites is Mission San Xavier. The National Historic Landmark was founded as a Catholic mission by Father Eusebio Kino in 1692 and is a stunning venue.
Arizona boosters Burt and Nancy Kinerk, our surrogate Tucson folks, invited us to join them for a much-needed date night at the mission. It was an exquisite candlelit evening snuggled next to Chuck on a wooden pew watching and listening to the Sons of Orpheus and Tucson Arizona Boys Choir intoxicate us with Christmas hymns.
It was a great weekend with wonderful people. Who could ask for more?
As always, thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @carriegcecil.
