What really makes a great recruiter? Let's say I have a great personality. The parents of the kids I visit LOVE me. The kids love me. I am truely knowledgeable. It is a proven point. I am a winner everywhere I have been. The worse my team came in was at 23 in the nation when I was an assistant. I have all the good things pointing in my favor. BUT-----I am now recruiting for UAB or Vandy or Baylor or Tulane or whatever. How in the he!! can I out recruite LSU or anyother really prestigious university? Doesn't a really good salesman have to have a quality product? Just a little something that has been bothering me lately. :crystal: :lsup:
Well sometimes people miss a big picture. Fact is every school has many rich experiences to offer kids. Tulane is a great learning institution, not that you cannot get a great education at LSU or Ole Miss. BUT Tulane is one of the top schools in the South. Vandy, thats almost Ivy League. So not ALL kids just want to play football. Its the program as a whole, maybe they want to go away to school and experience new things, maybe they really like the people there. Fact is, some kids go to a school because their football team is good. However smart kids look at the school as a whole, the city, the people the culture. Just like Saban said, you dont go to a school because of a coach or uniform, you go for the experience of the school and culture as a whole.
Well, of the teams you mentioned, only Baylor and Vandy are in major conferences, and the reality is that no one can recruit there. At schools like UAB and Tulane, you arent recruiting against perennial national title contenders in your conference. As such, you can be somewhat successful without recruiting the best players. UAB and Vandy will never get a player out of Baton Rouge that LSU wants, though. Its not just about the coach, its also about the school. Location, facilities, and academics play a part, too.
Knowing what makes each recruit and their parents tick, asking all the right questions and listening to their answers, forgetting about the guys you can't get or that you don't want. Than formulating a plan to get these recruits and their parents to believe what your school has to offer is what they want and need. Just like sales.
I think that in today's recruiting game credibility is most important. The best track record comes in the form of coaches who have been associated with both the college and the professional ranks. If you can sit in a living room and talk about talent level and the understanding of what it takes to reach the NFL, you have instant credibility. If you talk about developing a kid and constantly monitoring his talent with an opportunity to reach the next level in mind, you can sell your program, your system, and the university. Academics, location, tradition, and prestige, are all ancillary after you establish credibility. On the other hand, there are a few Bowden / Coker types still out there who establish instant credibility based on wins, losses, exposure, and championships...
I guess I wasn't clear enough. I realize some young men really are interested in academics. MANY are not. I was really referring to the ones that only want to USE college as a training school for the pros.
Well another thing to consider, Big fish in a small pond. Sometimes being an amazing player in a spare conference gets you a ton of attentions (Moats La Tech, Randy Moss) etc etc.
The thing is at those schools, you are going to get the 3rd and 4th tier players. But besides Vandy and Baylor, that's also the type of players that largely make up your conference. The head coach at Tulane has a sweet gig if he can coach. The expectations are relatively low, and you play against like talent in the conference. You can also play the education card for those few players that actually care about the level of education (unfortunately, not many fit this bill). The thing to remember is that a Tulane/Baylor/USM/Houston/Vandebilt etc. are not really competing against LSU/Texas/OU/Florida/etc. in recruiting. They may target a few that are in that class, but they are mainly recruiting against other regional teams that also are getting Tier 3 and 4 recruits. Winning in Conf USA/MAC/etc. proves that you can coach/recruit among your peers, but it doesn't always correlate to winning in the powerhouse conferences like the SEC and Big XII. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. :helmet:
