My son is class of 2020 and wants to kick. I’ve learned a lot going through this process for older brother, but not for football which I assume is an entirely different ball of wax. From what I’ve read, I’m thinking to put together hudl highlights from sophomore season and to do a video that shows consecutive kicks at different distances (10 at each one) with continuous film. Then possible send out links to the film to colleges of interest just to let them know he is interested. I don’t think the could contact him back until after junior year right?
Best advice is go to a kicking camp such as Kohl’s and get ranked. Beyond that do 2 things. Get him on a recruiting website(free) like Berecruited, CaptainU, GoBigrecruiting or NCSA and post his video highlights as well as stats and coaches info. Next try and go to college camps over the summer to get exposure. Many camps have 25-30 schools there at the 1 camp. Good luck.
^Yep on Kohl’s. That or Ray Guy. For specialists (punters, kickers, long snappers), those two programs really run the recruiting game. Not sure film matters much for specialists.
I just wish they weren’t so expensive. There is a Ray Guy one local next month, but it is $350 for the one day camp. His numbers look comparable to the guys his age they have ranked. We may have to wait a year and save up and let him go summer after sophomore year. Is that too late? He’s going to a local college day camp again this year, but it is much cheaper. Still got some excellent training last year though.
Figuring out how to do this on a budget may be a trick. I honestly don’t know what his potential is, but he seems to have a talent for it. He was taking all the kick offs for varsity for 6a1 last year as a freshman. He is a soccer player and the long balls have always been his best skill. I sent him the list of stats from the Ray Guy one so he has some goals to look at and keep working toward. From what I’ve heard to be ranked and continue to be ranked you have to keep going to their camps? If I can fork over $350 for one it would be difficult to keep doing that…
$350 is a drop in the bucket as far as expenses are concerned for the vast majority of recruitable athletes. Be thankful your son isn’t a hockey player.
I’m about to head out on a 15 hours drive with a wrestler to spend a few nights in a hotel and a couple hundred on tournament entry fees. I spend not as much but still way too much on a daughter that plays soccer.
For the wrestler, it will probably pay off, I’m 90% sure he can get free college at a local directional state (not his first choice, but a nice backup where he loves the coach and which would provide a nice career path). For him, it’s probably a break even or a bit better on the cost, plus it has given him many opportunities including international travel. I consider it money well spent.
For D, we are just part of the broken system where if you want to play at a high level you must spend like crazy. And she doesn’t really want to play in college either. FML
Good point. I understand the soccer … just went through it for my oldest who graduated. He’s playing next year. It worked out for us that the school he really wanted to attend (and had non athletic scholarships too) formed a JV team (D2) and it’s a great fit for him. He had NAIA offers, but this school had the major he wanted and since the education is the primary goal … I guess for soccer because the showcase tournaments are expected as part of the regular season it doesn’t seem as bad - but I hadn’t looked at the one day football camp as comparable to a weekend showcase tournament with the hotel and gas costs along with tournament. It’s about the same cost and the same effect (except the camp may also teach him something rather than just being seen). This one is a soccer player too, but while it is early to say, kicking may be his best option. I just need to plan and save better
Having just come through senior year & graduation, deposits on college, drivers ed, and competitive soccer tryouts coming up this weekend i’m a little overwhelmed on expenses 
There is a Ray Guy camp nearby. Also a kicking world. About the same?
Go with Ray Guy of the 2. Search in about a 200 mile radius for colleges having a summer football camp…technically a specialist camp. There are usually quite a few.
Agree with @moscott again. Go with Ray Guy or Kohls, the rest are hit and miss. And yes, in football terms, $350 is a lot for a camp. Thankfully, that sport has not devolved into the craziness that some other sports have as far as tournament/select/showcase fees. The only thing I can say about speciaslist recruiting is that the long snapper on my son’s high school team is now on scholarship in the MAC and he attended two Ray Guy events total and then one late camp at the school where he attends. A colleague has a son who is a kicker who has a great shot to end up at the low FBS/FCS level, we will see how this year plays out. He just did the Kohl’s national camp and does maybe three of those events a year. You have to remember that most college staffs do not have the room for dedicated full time specialist coaches, so they are really reliant on people who know what they are talkling about when recruiting kickers, punters and long snappers. Both Ray Guy and Kohls will get good, accurate and meaningful data that is trusted by the college coaches on each kid and then that will be disseminated to schools looking for specialists in that cycle. To my understanding, that is crucial.
Thanks @Ohiodad51 - I can understand that. He’s just going to be a sophomore so I’m thinking this summer we will do the local college camp (he did it last year and got some great instruction) and plan for either the Ray Guy or Kohls next summer following sophomore year and then again maybe following junior year.
I also have a DS20 kid who is a sophomore this year and kicked for the JV football team this year. He went to a one-day Kohl’s camp last weekend in Austin; if you sign up early enough, it’s only $300. Still not cheap but it was a great day. There were only 12-13 kickers (some kickers, some punters) and 7 snappers. There were two Kohl’s staff coaches and two local college kicker “helpers”. They did kick-offs, field goals and punts. Filmed each kid 2-3 times on each type of kick, then went inside to a classroom (it was held at a local private high school), watched all the videos and critiqued each kid. Parents were welcome to watch. They had competitions – start off closer to the goal, you miss it you’re out, and then kept moving back until whoever was left missed. They wrote down the stats for all the kicks and, at some point, that’s supposed to be posted on the website. It was 8:00 am to 4:00 pm and well worth the money. They also got a booklet (probably 30 pages??) of warm-up activities, drills, techniques, etc. which they could take home and use on their own. This was a regular one-day camp; Kohl’s also has two-day camps and things they call “showcases” which are not as much training and more competition.
DS went to a major university’s kicking camp last summer (after his freshman year) and will do that one again this summer and possibly one or two more college kicking camps. They are cheaper than the Kohl’s camp but have more kids and more staff/coaches too.
I’ll be following this thread.
My son attended one company’s kicking camp, as well as a Kicking World camp. By far the Kicking World camp was our best experience with the quality of instruction, the form being taught, and multiple drills provided to students. I even learned a lot by watching/listening from the stands.
My son is somewhere in between intermediate and a seasoned kicker, and he took away loads of new info that the other camp completely skipped over. The other one felt like it was just coaches walking around charting down stats, and there wasn’t much substance to the event.
I looked up reviews on Kicking World before signing up and saw they had quite a few college kids at big FBS programs and some even went on to play in the NFL which really appealed to me. I figure if they got students to that level, they should do well with HS athletes. We were impressed with the attention to detail and didn’t feel like ‘just another # or $’ to Kicking World. At another camp my son completely got lost amongst the 200+ other campers and it seemed like they only paid attention to the kids they saw often, and almost favored them in the competitions.
My wife and I both felt like the Kicking world staff truly appreciated our business and cared about my son, and they weren’t just going through the motions. We’d def recommend Kicking World for parents wanting to get the best value and coaching for their child.
My son went through Kohl’s. He was an all conference lineman in high school but too small and too slow for D1. He attended a Kohl’s long snapping 2 day camp and they taught him well. Kohl’s has excellent instructors and good contacts in college coaching.
My son went to the camps the summer after sophomore year and generated interest based on Kohl’s national rankings. The summer of his junior year, he attended camps of individual schools that were recruiting him based on the exposure from Kohl’s. I can’t say enough good things about Kohl’s (or Ohiodad51s advice). Kohl’s camps are pretty expensive, but it ended up paving the way to an excellent education at a D1 (FCS) school.
I think the major D1 schools are looking for the top players in the Chris Sailer camp. Beyond that, I don’t think schools really place any recruiting priority for kickers and that the pool of potential kickers/punters come out of tryouts. obviously there will be exceptions to this depending on the school.
I think it is true that for most kids, scholarship opportunities as a specialist are very limited coming out of high school. Most schools are going to use a walk on slot every year or two on a kicker/punter/long snapper. So there are probably two, maybe three of each who are rostered every year. Maybe one of each will end up with a scholly, depending on how they perform in spring ball/summer camp. Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule, and the very top couple kids in the nation are going to get schollyed somewhere out of the box. But relying on that is kind of like the arguments we see here about how Ivy schools take kids with bad academics. It is usually unproductive to focus on the very small numbers of low band recruits (or scholarship freshman place kickers) and then try and extrapolate out. The fact is that ii is very hard to earn a scholly as a specialist, harder even than it is as a regular player.
But at the end of the day, I still think Kohls and Ray Guy are the class of this particular world.
Good advice so far. I would also have your son (initially with your guidance?) fill out the online recruiting questionnaires for all of the football programs he is interested in. I would cast a wide net now, and it is not too early for a rising sophomore to do this. Stay on top of the recruiting rules, they change frequently. Here is NCAA D1 football recruiting guide, each NCAA division has one, as does NAIA. http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/2018-19DIREC_FootballGuide_20180629.pdf
Lastly, I agree that he probably doesn’t need a long, professionally produced kicking video. A short highlight video on a post pinned at the top of his twitter account (create one if he doesn’t have one), along with a berecruited.com (et. al.) profile with video should suffice.
OK- so we are 3 weeks into Junior year. Apparently he is doing pretty well and catching a lot of “fan” attention (ie people in the crowds, old football players, etc). Last Friday an opposing team coach came over and talked to him during warm ups because he had seen him scout film putting balls through the end zone in the previous game. He’s been friended on facebook by a few “trainers” who want to train him (first one free). We are hesitant to do alot of extra training during season since he’s already taking so many kicks and it is hard to know who is going to help or not. Plus we can’t really afford alot. We’ve talked about priority one being grades/act score since it sounds like most likely affording college is going to be based on academic and that it turn will open doors for him to likely walk on (since it sounds like most kickers aren’t really on scholarship). But - in the meantime, how should he handle this. He has created a hudl highlight from games 1-3. He is going to go fill out potential athlete forms. Should he email coaches now? Should he send the hudl highlight or should he wait and send with all junior year? Will they even watch it? He has a 23 on ACT and plans to take it more and a 3.9 unweighted gpa. I’m thinking at this point maybe go ahead and register with the clearinghouse since we know he wants to pursue football or soccer. If he emails does he try to email a special teams coach or head coach or just put the hudl link in potential athlete form. We were going to try and send him to a specialty camp last summer, but his dad had a major medical that had to take priority. He does have a twitter account and has put his hudl highlights on it. He isn’t really active on social media though and doesn’t have tons of followers. We just aren’t sure the right approach for all this. His older brother is on academic scholarships and has a work study job. They will have one overlapping year of college (most likely) so getting cost down is a big consideration. Thanks for all the feedback - it is very appreciated!