Recruiting Law: Thou Shall Love the Weightroom

If it looks like a football player and it looks like a football player that looks like a football player then it’s a football player. That’s not exactly how that saying goes in the rest of the World but it does hold some truth in the world of college football recruiting. Allow me to show you.

The eyes are a powerful thing. Even before you can touch or smell something, the eyes are at work making 1,000’s of computations about a person, a place or a thing. It’s why most believe that the sense of sight is the most powerful sense of all. In that vain the first assessment a college football coach will make about you upon seeing you is whether or not, through his eyes, you look like a football player. You may have grown up on the old adage never judge a book by it’s cover, nobody told a college football coach that.

Recruiting Law: Know When to Fold ‘Em

Chad Wilson

If you learned one thing about recruiting from me on this blog it’s that self awareness can be your biggest asset or your biggest weakness. Failing to have it will undoubtedly lead to you making a series of bad decisions that will likely turn your college football career (if you even have one) into a nightmare.

In that same vain, today’s discussion in this blog post is directly related to having good self awareness. Football is a sport where quitting is frowned upon. A never say die attitude is needed in training and certainly on Friday nights when things aren’t going your way. It’s a strong life lesson that every football player should stuff in their pocket and carry with them. However, there is quitting and there is steering yourself in the right direction.

Recruiting Law: Teach Them How to Be Loyal

Chad Wilson

Finding a good program to play football can be tough. I am not just talking about a college football program. I am talking about a high school football program. Not only am I talking about a college football program and a high school football program but I am also talking about a youth football program. However, making the right choices concerning the latter two will certainly make the choice on the first one easier. When the choice is made, it is then about teaching the prospect to be loyal.

Recruiting Law: Develop Decision Making Skills

Chad Wilson

In the next part of my recruiting law series, I move onto one that is the essence of the recruiting process and that is decision making. Everything in recruiting is about decisions. When to workout, what high school to go to, what camps to go to, etc. Every level of the process and every aspect of the process involves making decisions so it only stands to reason that being good at making decisions should be a key emphasis as you go through this process.

Start Early

This article is as much for parents as it is for prospects. The reason I say this is that the earlier a prospect can develop decision making skills the better. As much as I may think I am good at writing, I know a kid playing youth football is not likely to read this article. So to the parent or mentor that is reading this, make making decisions a key part of a child’s development. Don’t make all the decisions for them. Give them options and observe their choices. Review with them the results and give praise when a good decision was made with positive results. Likewise, point out the negative results when a poor decision is made. However, do not forget to point out when a poor decision was made and through fortune (aka luck) a good result was achieved. This is very important! Explain to your young titan how he “got away with one” and how he may not be so fortunate next time. Believe me, the opportunity will come where you can show him how he attempted to make the same type of decision and it didn’t work out for him. Bottom line though, like anything else you want your kid to be good at, making decisions needs practice.

Recruiting Law: Don’t Be Late to the Party

Chad Wilson

Ever showed up to a party later than you wanted only to see people filing out of the house or hall or club? Remember the sinking feeling you had as people walked by smiling and laughing. Perhaps the dagger really got stuck in your heart when you saw someone you know and they say “man you missed it, where were you?”.

Perhaps you missed the party for the ages by moving too slowly for whatever reason. In time, you’ll get over it. Being late to the recruiting party can be a pain that lasts a lifetime.

RECRUITING LAW: Intelligence is Underrated

Chad Wilson

Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before, the world of college football recruiting is very competitive. Being on point in all aspects of your recruiting profile is in your best interest. Unfortunately, one of the aspects of the profile that gets overlooked the most is intelligence. This article is here to tell you that this is a mistake.

When it comes to the upper-echelon of college football recruiting meaning the Power 5 and Top 25 teams, thoughts on the academics tends to stray towards get a “good enough” GPA and get the score you need to pass the test (SAT, ACT). On the face of it, sure, you need the proper GPA and score to even be offered a scholarship. However, if that is the extent or prevailing opinion that you have regarding your academics, you may be setting yourself up for failure.