Ivy Football - Advice on best approach?

New to the forum, but noticed great advice on threads. Looking for some guidance for a new parent in process. To provide background, son currently going into junior year. Typical solid student athlete top 5% of class +30 ACT range as as soph, above average football player. Solid high school football conference which Ivy teams have recruited kids prior. My quest would be not be high level scholarship/aide money but a coach helped process with admissions for a roster spot.

  1. Are the camps worth the time - we live in south mid west so not a simple process to attend.
  2. Should you contact coaches for unofficial visits?
  3. What is your advice on initial contact?
  4. How much should high school coach be involved?

Thanks in advance,

There is no money in the Ivy league for athletics, nor academic scholarships, only need based financial aid…

Post in the athletic recruits forum, attn: @Ohiodad51

No need; I’ve moved the thread.

thanks for moving the thread , sorry for posting in wrong spot

No worries. It was not posted in the “wrong” spot, but this spot will elicit the best responses for your situation.

The camps & film of your son playing football are the ways to get on coaches radar. So, yes, the camps are important.

  1. Camps are the only way your son will get recruited - they are a necessity
  2. Should you contact coaches for unofficial visits? No, let your HS start the process of outreach
  3. Advice on initial contact: Submit the online recruiting forms and go through your HS coach to set up visits. If colleges are not (yet) interested in meeting you, that should tell you something.
  4. High school coach be involvement: As much as possible. I would start with a meeting with your HS coach and your son with a detailed list of target schools - Ivy, Patriot, Nescac and others - start off with a wide net.

Send film to the appropriate coach. And, of course, attend the camps.

With respect to HS coach involvement, what will he/she say about player’s attitude ? Size is easy to put on paper, skill is shown on film & in camps.

I don’t know football, so ymmv, but I question that everything should be filtered through the high school coach. Our coach was helpful, but we initiated all the contacts. S sport was wrestling. Double check that with someone who knows football.

And the high school coach may know nothing about Ivy schools or football, how the recruiting works. My daughter’s hs coach was a young kid, just out of college. She was also not a teacher at the hs, so she didn’t know the girls as students at all. Former coach, also not a teacher, had gone to Navy so knew nothing about most other schools. The club coach was more helpful as she was a hs coach and teacher.

Short version, IMHO:

1)Unless you are an athletic outlier in the Ivy (think P5 level, 3-4 star recruit) the camps are very important
2)Only after they have initiated some level of contact
3)Find a hosting site, cut up a highlight reel and fill out questionnaires at target schools
4)I think the high school coach is crucial.

Longer version:

Going in to junior year, the most important thing for your son to do is lay down some good tape this season. Once the season is over, cut the tape up into a short highlight reel (no more than 3-4 minutes, max). Then host that video on a recruiting site. If your son is pointing towards the Ivy, then the site of choice is GoBig recruiting, which is run by Ross Tucker, a former Princeton offensive lineman. GoBig will host a profile that can be seen by all schools who subscribe, and then the recruit/parent can pay to release video to the schools on a one at a time basis. It is pretty cheap as these things go and I believe I spent less than $200 on it during my son’s recruitment. I am sure there are other sites that work just as well, but I can definitely recommend GoBig.

After the tape is done and you have a hosting site there are two other things I would do before I would start thinking about camps/junior days/unofficial visits. First, your son should find your local SPARQ or Rivals Speed camp and register. These are free, and are really designed to get some neutral and at least half way accurate numbers for height, weight, 40, shuttle, vertical, etc. Second, have him fill out the recruiting questionnaires on his target list of schools.

I would advise that those three things be done prior to the beginning of the new year (he likely won’t have results from SPARQ/Rivals at that point, because those events are generally held in the spring), because coaches in the Ivy will start to turn their attention to the entering class of 2020 during the January/February contact period is 2019. The idea is that some combination of the tape/information on the questionnaire will prompt some schools to reach out during that time.

I am not a huge fan of cold contacting coaches, at least in football. The Ivys cast a pretty wide net at the beginning of recruiting, and if you fill out their questionnaire and provide them with a way to access tape I believe they will reach out if they see any kind of potential. Another way schools will reach out is through visits to the high school during the second semester. I don’t know the profile of your son’s school, but some schools are on a regular visit list with coaches, and others seem to only be visited if there is a prospect of particular interest. Here is where the high school coach plays his first role. At schools like my son’s, where a number of coaches make regular stops, recruiters will often ask the coach who he should talk to/look into in that particular cycle. This can be immensely helpful to spark interest. However it happens, I would let the schools initiate contact, because that gives you your first data point to gauge if the schools are interested.

Once contact is initiated the game really starts, and the task becomes trying to figure out who is potentially a serious landing spot and who is just going through the motions. If your son is a legit prospect, it is likely that he will get several junior day invites. Pay attention to the contacts that come in, and do your best to get your son to engage with the schools. Over a bit of time, you will begin to see differences in how schools reach out to him. Some will be form letter/mass email type contact. Others will be personal e mails, texts or schools visits/phone calls (when allowed). If feasible, I would use this information and try and attend a few junior days/unofficial visits during the spring of junior year at schools which seem interested. The travel is kind of a pain, but at least in my son’s case very helpful, because it got his list of schools down to 5-6 where he knew there was legit interest and as importantly he was also interested. It was primarily from this list that he picked his camps.

Personally, I don’t think the camps are worth attending unless there is both real interest from the school and a certain amount of confidence that the kid can play at that level. Here again the high school coach can be very helpful. If your son’s program has had any type of success in getting kids recruited into college, the coach can be a great source of information on whether your son can actually compete at the lower D1/Ivy level or whether a different focus would be better.

If your son can check both of those boxes, then unfortunately the camps are in my opinion a necessary evil. The vast majority of each roster in the Ivy will have attended one of the school’s camps. Sure, some kids get offers without attending the camps. My son played with two in high school, one now playing in the Big Ten, the other in SEC. For most kids though, the straightest path is to attend the camps, and hope the kid flashes. It is just how the system works.

Interesting post above. Attend the camps. Attend the camps. Attend the camps.

Do not rely on your HS coach unless you are certain that he will enthusiastically support your son’s value regarding both skills & attitude. A player who has excellent skills can be crossed off the list by a poor reference regarding attitude, work ethic, substance abuse, etc.

Make a short highlight film.

Recently had a nephew recruited from a baseball camp by a major Ivy equivalent school, but in a more serious athletic conference (Power 5). No coach involvement, no film, no prior contact. Of course, baseball is not football (where film is essential), but it shows the importance of camps.

I want to expand on this a little bit. First, I agree that a high school coach is not going to run your son’s recruitment for him. Those days are long over, for good or ill. Second, a kid who has a poor relationship with his high school coach could cause a lot of schools to back away. Look at what Jim Mora said about Josh Rosen, and that is within the context of a relative handful of players and essentially unlimited “recruiting” budgets. What do you think happens if a college coach stops in at a high school for his twice yearly 3 hour visit and the coach says that player x doesn’t have the work ethic to play in college or is a discipline problem?

In my opinion, it is best to know where the coach stands on a particular kid’s college prospects from the jump, because at some point the college coaches are absolutely going to talk with the high school coach.

Thank you very much for incredible wealth of information, extremely helpful.

I have no experience with football recruiting and I have been involved primarily with D3 recruiting. Still, there are some fundamental truths that apply to every sort of athletic recruiting. I offer them here to the extent that they are helpful.

  1. Never rely on anyone or organization other than you (and your kid) to get your kid recruited. Can they help? Maybe, and your son should ask his coaches (high school and club/travel/tournament) if they would be references and support him with college coaches. The request is both a courtesy and clues the coaches in that your kid is serious and wants to be recruited. It could be beneficial in terms of playing time or the games where your kid makes a long appearance. But, don't think anyone cares about this more than you or your son. They don't.
  2. Never think (and it is obvious that you do not) that coaches will come to your kid. They won't.
  3. Instead pursue the coaches. Don't limit yourself to a geographic area or a few colleges. Convince your kid that recruiting is a process and you have absolutely no idea where your kid will end up. Don't think that you are above or below any college's athletic level (unless it is absolutely obvious). Starting an email dialogue with 50 colleges is not unreasonable. And, it can give you an idea of the necessary level of play and where your kid fits in. If you focus on d1, and that level is too high, you may get frustrated and give up.
  4. Organize your efforts. Have a plan. Make sure you have a good, well edited tape. Draft up a college resume, then move onto filling out the college recruiting questionnaires, then start emailing coaches. Meet with a few college coaches. Start with the local coaches before branching out to the coaches of the programs you prefer. PS. the rules about communicating with coaches are different for D1 vs. D3.
  5. Decide how your son best shows his talents best? Seek out the camps that will best complement those talents. Combine camps with college visits and interviews (if possible). Use the tapes. Email them to coaches and consider posting them on You Tube.
  6. Keep a detailed spread sheet of your contacts with coaches and their responses.

It is a lot of work but can be extremely rewarding.

My D is a D3 basketball recruit. Different sport, different sex. All kinds of different. Get film, attend camps. Some HS coaches are much better than others, much better. My D did not even involve her HS coach. It was all about AAU and club. And Film. At least in basketball we needed to provide full game film and highlights. Not sure about football, but I assume the same. We found that you could “hire” someone at the camps/tournaments to record and provide film for a fee. And they did an incredible job. Do it! Worth every penny…

OP – listen to what Ohiodad51 says - he really knows what he’s talking about. I followed his advice and re read his posts while my son was going through the recruiting process. My son also targeted and ultimately landed at a high academic program. I think you are smart to start the process now. My son was injured during his junior year season which required surgery at the end of the season followed by a long recovery program. I mention this because he could not attend camps at all the summer following junior year. So, if you can attend some camps this year ( my son did a couple of local ones between soph-jr year ( Northwestern ) I think that would be a great way to start.

My son’s process was probably a little different than Ohiodad’s son but it involved a lot of luck ( really! ). He played on a really good team for a great coach. His high school coach was incredibly helpful - however, he was also in the learning stages of high academic and power 5 recruitment. By now, he is well versed but he also puts players’ families’ in touch with other parents for guidance. So, keep talking to those who have been through the process.

My son sent out his Hudl tape and reached out to coaches on his own and made contact with a couple of players that he knew at a few schools who, in turn, talked to the coaches. Knowing someone does help.

In the end, he started receiving offers February of junior year and ultimately committed in August before senior year. The first coach to offer is a well known guy who ran a successful program at a school my son had no interest in attending. But, because of that offer it spurred on more offers ( all coaches knowing my son was injured ).

My husband and son spent the summer between junior and senior year visiting schools that had offered him, meeting with head coaches. Ultimately he picked the school for the school - which is the best advice I can give to anyone going through this process. Football is fine for him but school is great.

Good luck to you and your son!

Thanks again to everyone who has helped add to great advice we will certainly activate soon!