MJF College Football Recruiting

Some recruiting termonology and my take on it. I think these words or phrases are often misused and misunderstood

"Offer"- Colleges cant offer a prospect a scholarship in writing until Aug 1 going into the players senior year. Many 1A football programs "verbally" offer players much earlier than that, during their junior year, in rare cases earlier. Both a verbal and written offer are non-binding. 1AA programs tend to offer players during or after their senior year. Some have started to follow the trend of 1A programs and offer players during thier junior year or in the summer before their senior year. D2 and NAIA programs tend to make all offers after a players senior year is complete.

"Verbal commitment"- It used to be that once a prospect verbally commited to a college that was the end of their recruitment, "decommitments" were unheard of. Things have changed in drastically with this. Many players verbally commit to a college and change their mind later on, its quite common. I am not endorsing this is just reality and college coaches know it and adapt. These days the turnover in college football coaching is very high. When their seasons are over 20 D1 head coaches and their staffs may be fired, maybe more. This often causes players to re-think their commitments and in some cases decommit.

"Exposure"- one of the most widley misused terms in my opinion. To me the only exposure that truly matters is a college football coach having your information and watching your film or seeing you at their summer camp or play live. Combines/camps, players can work on their skills at these events, but most, i think do very little to help a player get recruited. A player can go to zero camps/combines or off season events, if he sends his film to college football coaches and they evaluate it, if he is a scholarship caliber player college coaches will be in touch. Thats all the "exposure" you need. You need to know that that college coaches, many college coaches, have watched and evaluated your film. Then they will decide if you are a scholarship candidate at their school.