College recruiting has always been a changing landscape. As technology and coverage has changed, it has improved over time, as has the way college recruits get in contact with recruits and their parents. It’s a way for the colleges to improve their communication in an effort to land highest-ranked recruits in the nation at a time when recruits are more essential to a program than ever before.
Whether public schools open this fall — including, for emphasis in this piece, high schools with college prospects — seems to be an ongoing battle between Donald Trump and the various superintendents of different school districts. Several superintendents have said they do not plan to open this fall. Los Angeles Public Schools will not open this fall, instead opting to maintain their online correspondence courses this fall… and that’s just one district in the country. San Diego opted to do the same.
It’s a touch and go situation, and it seems very “go” right now as opposed to “touch.” It’s not an easy situation to deal and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What works for one district may not work for another.
This makes it really hard for college coaches to evaluate high school football players. Lack of competition or limited competition — either one — put coaches in a bind. Plenty of coaches won’t have the full set of evaluation-based tools they usually depend on. They’re going to offer a number of kids based on film and film alone. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if a number of kids in this class turn out to be busts. Coaches are going to have to spend a good chunk of their time developing these players instead of relying on sheer talent.
Of course, it won’t just be high school players who are offered scholarships. Junior colleges around the nation have already announced that they will be playing their games in the spring instead of the fall. This gives coaches and players time and space to avoid coronavirus infections, providing them the ability to practice and get into shape prior to engaging in a full season of play. Something that gets lost in these discussions is that players need that time to get into football shape. You can’t just slap a season together and expect folks to be ready to go simply because administrators will it to be so. We will be exploring the JUCO recruiting puzzle — and its specific challenges — in another article.