@twoinanddone: I think that you need to read your own posts more carefully–especially post #18 above.
@Houston1021 Reached out to Rice, had a reply within the hour! Fingers crossed…
I will contact Northwestern. I don’t think I have a shot in the Power 5, honestly, but it can’t hurt. I did contact Tennessee just because it’s been a dream of mine to play in Neyland since I started playing, but idk if that’s possible.
Thanks for all the advice so far guys! I’m going to look into the Patriot League as well.
I searched for info on what makes a player a recruited athlete/PWO and thus a counter for D1/FBS, and found that information. It doesn’t conflict with what Ohiodad posted for athletic aid in post 19. If the student meets the requirements to receive aid, he can, but if he becomes a preferred walk on or counter, the coach has to include those funds in the team totals at FBS schools. Most schools have given out all their 85 scholarships and don’t have room for counting more so the 35 or so walk ons aren’t getting aid from the school.
The quote in post 18 warns the athlete to let the coach knows he wants to remain not recruited if he’s hoping to become a walk-on so that the coach doesn’t do anything to make the status ‘recruited.’ One of those things is an OV. Another is personal contact with a coach off campus. The student can make/take calls to/from the coach and can do an UV, but I’m not sure if off campus personal contact includes football camps at other schools.
The OP seems to be looking for a scholarship. He doesn’t want to be a preferred walk on so he needs to not take OVs, or meet with coaches off campus.
Good Luck to you @Mornin23. Rice is one of the smallest schools to play D1 football. It is very highly ranked in US News and World Report for its academics. Rice meets full financial need and awards some academic merit scholarships in addition to awarding athletic scholarships. Rice won its first game under their new head coach (former offensive coordinator for Stanford) last night.
I am not sure how much it will ultimately matter, and I don’t know where the info @twoinanddone cited came from. But I do know that in D1 football being a recruit, defined by the NCAA as
does not mean a student athlete must forgo financial aid or academic merit aid. Some of the confusion may be because the rule in the FBS (and I think D1 basketball) is that once a rostered athlete plays in varsity competition, that athlete becomes a counter.
My son was offered a number of PWO opportunities at high academic FBS schools, and at no point did anyone ever say we would have to forgo financial aid if he decided to accept the opportunity. In fact, a couple (Northwestern, Duke and I think Michigan) touted the academic merit aid my son would qualify for if he chose to attend. I coached a kid who will be a specialist in the MAC as a PWO who receives a fair bit of need based FA and a small academic award (according to his parents). So I am pretty confident that recruiting interest/PWO status does not effect aid eligibility outside of the NCAA rule cited above. As I have said before, the Patriot League does mandate that all aid provided to a rostered player counts as athletic aid by conference rule. Other conferences or institutions may do the same, but I am unaware of any.
Okay, so I can still get financial aid if I’m a PWO?
And to clarify, I am totally open to the idea of walking on. A scholarship would be great, but rn it’s hard enough to get these coaches to even reply to my emails, so I don’t plan on pushing for a scholarship that I believe I can earn at some point.
I think that it may be better to register your interest on the website rather than email coaches. This should trigger contact from a rep who recruits your region.
If you’re in Texas, try UTSA. Their defensive coaching staff is outstanding at finding potential in players. Marcus Davenport, for instance, was almost not drafted out of high school as a wide receiver. After getting recruited at UTSA, the coaching staff put him on a greasy cheesburger diet and turned him into a Quarterback killer. He turned the Roadrunners into a top ranked defense and now he’s a rookie for the New Orleans Saints.
In my opinion, and outside of the known exception of the Patriot League, yes. If you ever get that far in the process though, the coaches will know definitively what NCAA/conference/school rules apply.
I don’t think it matters at all whether you fill out a questionnaire from the website or e mail coaches directly. Most schools will convert the questionnaire list into a mailing list for spam e mail about camps, etc. At best, it may generate a review of your stats by an intern/GA to the coaching staff. Since you have no tape to review, it is hard to see where that would lead you. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you need to squarely face the fact that there are at max 110 roster slots on a Div 1 roster (120 in the Ivy), and in both the FBS and FCS @85 of those spots will be filled by scholarship players. So there are 25 theoretical spots for walk ons. When you think about the numbers in football, that is just not that many slots.
Again though, in my opinion the opportunity to get a chance to walk on will depend in large part on who you are attempting to contact. It is unlikely that schools like Tennessee will respond substantively to cold calling, because they are recruiting hundreds of kids in each class already and have significant recruiting budgets and resources. East Tennessee State on the other hand might have some time for you.
Ohiodad definitely knows more than I do but to add to his statement about which programs to contact. Using Tennessee as an example, the bulk of their PWO have been recruited and have basically been told they are in the scholarship mix, depending on how signing day works out, kind of a “wait list”. These are the players that have smaller school offers but wait in the hopes something will open up at the power 5 school and when the class is filled they are offered the PWO and take that as opposed to a scholarship at a smaller program. The smaller program then has to fill a scholarship spot from that recruit and one of their “wait list” kids slides up, opening a PWO spot at the smaller school.
I think this smaller school is where you will find your opportunity although it may be late in the recruiting process as you will likely have a PWO spot open in the week after the second signing day, or later.
^ I think that is pretty much correct. PWOs are recruited, either as stop gap scholly guys or as straight out PWO candidates. There are far more guys willing to be a PWO at Tennessee, Georgia, Notre Dame than there are available roster slots. Every slot on the roster has value, because football needs a lot of bodies. If Alabama can rotate two young scholly guys along with a pretty decent PWO through the DE position and run them all at their LT during pass pro, that kid is going to be better come game day than if he spent his practice time going up against me all the time. It is just how it works.
Another important point to remember is that some of those PWO slots are taken up by specialists who are essentially on a one or sometimes two year try out. It is not uncommon for a D1 school to have 2-3 PWO kickers, 1-2 punters and 1-2 long snappers in camp. Very rarely are specialists given a scholly right out of high school. Those kids are asked to come in and pay their way for a year or two and compete for the job.
So in reality, and accounting for say 6 specialist slots a school will have maybe 19 PWOs max at any one time. I guarantee at least 2-3 of those will be QBs who are basically trading being a glorified camp arm for getting to continue with the sport, and a handful more will be running back/receiver types who are there primarily to switch up looks on the scout team. So while 25 slots sounds like a lot, I would be shocked if there are more than 2 or maybe 3 defensive linemen PWOs on any D1 roster.
Now that is a diet plan I can get behind!
A real world example. My son graduated high school with a long snapper, whose brother was a punter that played 4 years at a mid major and then grad transferred to a power 5 school for his last year and had a great season. That power 5 school took the younger brother as a regular walk on long snapper, part as a courtesy, part as a try out, and part because he was absolutely free.
The long snapper’s goal was to work to become a PWO year 2 and eventually see playing time. The reality was after spring practice his freshman year he was called in and in his words “let go”. The reality is he was probably told he would continue as a regular walk on and be practice fodder and he decided he had had enough. BUt in the end he took his shot so if the regular walk on route sounds like something you want to do go for it, no regrets.
I could probably stare at a greasy cheeseburger for 7 minutes and gain that much weight.
I may already be on that diet…
So here’s what we have so far:
UTSA/Northwestern will be contacted. Whether or not anything comes of it, who knows? (I should’ve thought of UTSA. Love Marcus Davenport because he reminds me of me)
PWOs count against scholarships based on financial aid from the school itself.
So, question: What about a prep school? Something like Jireh Prep. (I know they’ve recently gone under, but I thnk with ample research I could find a respectable one). The Prep school itself would only be a semester, and I’d be going against guys that I could more than likely dominate by the time the 2019 season would roll around. It would delay college another semester and cost some money, but it would give me better tape, more time to become a D1-worthy player, and get better chances of a scholarship.
Do you mean to start prep school now? I don’t know if any would take you for fall 2019 as you’ll be aging out.
If you could pick a school to play next year, where would it be? At what type of schools? What type of school is a good fit for you academically? Smaller STEM school? State Directional D1 school? You received some good advice above to pick a conference and then look to those schools.
I would again advise you to be realistic in your goals. The high school football season has started in most of the country, college starts this weekend. So trying to latch on to a team at this point for this season is going to be very, very difficult. Even if you could, I think it is beyond my ability to express how difficult it would be to go in cold to a half way decent program and compete successfully with athletes who have had at least all of summer camp under their belt. And that is at a PG school. There is no way you are going to walk on a D1 practice field at this point and participate successfully this year. I doubt any school would let you try to be honest.
If I were you I would spend this fall getting stronger and researching which PG schools are around or which low end D1 schools may be open to you walking on in the second semester so you can participate in spring ball. Look at where the PG schools are sending their kids. How many are playing at the next level and where? Is it an affordable option for next year for you, and are you willing to delay college another year? Is that even possible (I don’t know much about PG schools, others probably know more). As far as jumping straight to D1, count the names on the roster. See who is under 110. Peruse the recruiting boards, and learn what you can about a school’s walk on program. Most schools will have a walk on coordinator, either an assistant coach or a staff member. Find out who that person is at your target schools and start reaching out. This is a tough time of year, because everything is geared to starting the season. So it may take some time to make contact. But recruiting never stops, and if a school is holding general walk on tryouts (which is likely the path you will need to follow), it is very likely to be in the early part of the second semester. They do this so they can fill out the roster for spring ball. So you are going to need to hit the ground running, because you will likely need to be in place and ready to go in January/February. You would then need to use whatever scout team reps you can get during the twelve to fifteen practice opportunities in the spring to intrigue the coaches enough to invite you back for summer camp. Does that make sense?
I am going to say this once more and then I won’t say it again, but I am a former D1 player and a former high school part time coach. My son is playing at Princeton now. I have been around this sport for a long time. You are doing yourself a disservice by not looking at what may be great opportunities in D2 and D3. College is not high school, and while football is one of those sports where there is a real competitive difference between the divisions, there is some good football played in D2 and D3. More importantly, the benefits of the sport are not dependent on crowd size. I have a nephew playing at a small D3 in Texas. Of course he would rather be suiting up at A&M and playing in front of 80,000 lunatics every Saturday. But he still has the benefit of the locker room, and the relationships that develop out of the blood, sweat and tears this games takes from us. He is continuing to learn the lessons of team work, relying on others, responsibility and the grind. Most importantly, he has been given the incredible gift of continuing to play a sport he loves longer than 90% of those who played it in high school. I would not lightly throw those things away just because the provided opportunities may not be at the highest level.
If you want to research competitive DIII football teams, google the 2017 DIII football playoff brackets. Should show either 16 or 32 DIII teams. University of Mount Union in Ohio almost always gets into the national championship game for DIII. Univ. of Wisconsin-Oshkosh is another strong program.
Also, you can hire a coach. There are coaching services for those wanting to go pro. I cannot recall the name, but one such outfit is located in Kennesaw, Georgia & others in Florida.
Regional recruiters should be able to help direct you as well as to make suggestions.
I think you may mean Wisconsin Whitewater. Except for 2017 when Mary Hardin Baylor won, Wisconsin Whitewater or Mount Union have won every D3 National Championship for more than a decade. Mount Union has been really dominant in D3 since at least the 90s, probably winning more than 50% of the national titles since that time. There is a pretty big difference between the top and bottom of D3 in football.