College football recruiters give advice in Twitter Spaces event

HOUSTON – The recruiting game can be complicated and arduous.

There are thousands of questions along the way. Especially now with the NCAA Transfer Portal playing such a big role in it, many high school football recruits are left with more questions than answers these days.

On Tuesday, led by Executive Director of Football Innovation of Player Personnel and Recruiting Innovation Marco Regalado and Whittier College Defensive Coordinator Tony Calijean, the School of Recruiting’s first Twitter space was held.

More than 2,500 people had tuned into the recording over an hour and a half by Wednesday morning. Regalado was joined by Oklahoma Director of Personnel and Recruiting JR Sandlin, Maryland Director of Campus Recruiting Patty Ohanian, Austin Peay Director of Recruiting Mason Robinson, College Line Coach Allan Hancock, Mike Pomfret and Minot State University’s Mike Fami.

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VYPE has collected some of the best information from the night and summarized it in one place. This series will continue every Tuesday evening through the month of July.

When does the recruitment deadline start?

“Once you start playing high school football, once you start getting some film, that’s when people will start to care and start to really appreciate that film. For a timeline, as soon as you start playing and you have some film, I would tell you right away during the season to start making highlights of those cuts. A two-game layoff, a three-game layoff … You’d want to make those cuts right after you start playing high school varsity football. This will be appreciated by the race coaches. Once you have that film, I always recommend sending it within a five-hour radius because that’s the driving distance… Then send it to every school that offers football the moment you start playing. Send it to every school that offers football in that five hour radius, maybe a seven hour radius if you need more schools. But it should give you 40 to 50 schools that offer college football in each division.” – JR Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)

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“For us, it will be so new [season] fall We want to see you making a contribution to your university team. Someone who shows leadership skills. We’ll be recruiting you all that junior year, basically going into that spring. To be a winning FCS program, we have to go against the big dogs. We need to recruit against the Power 5s and G5s if we want to play competitive football. We’re going to throw a big net of players who are all quality players… We know what we can offer.” – Mason Robinson (Austin Peay Football)

“The junior college approach, right now myself and most of the junior college coaches in the country, we’re looking at 23s. We’re looking at players going into their senior year of high school … If you’re about to be a senior and have no offers, you might want to start thinking about JUCO football, because that’s what we’re here for. During the season we are in contact with the players, we have no downtime, so we will build our tables. Contact really limited, but we want to see your tape. Spring is when we really kick it up, that’s when we start turning to our board.” – Mike Pomfret (Allan Hancock College Football)

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“The NAIA is a unique beast. For the best comparison, it is a combination of model DIII and DIII. We understand that most athletes will not go professional from this. We’ve had NFL scouts come through our programs that I’ve been in. But for the most part we embrace we will improve you as a human being first and foremost. Then we will have that translated into success on the field.” – Mike Famiglietti (Minot State University Football)

Movie/Game Highlight Tips

“I think the best thing when making a film is to understand who is my audience? What is my movie about? Is it for fun or is it to get the scholarship offer? If you’re doing it for a scholarship offer, you’re putting it together for the appraiser’s eyes. For example, if you’re running back so many times, you see a running back, put swipe right, swipe left, swipe right, tap, down, down. This is wonderful. What did we see? We saw that you can get to the edge and run into the end zone. But what are all the attributes a runner should have? We have never seen you trapped; we’ve never seen you run between tackles, we’ve never seen you catch the ball, we’ve never seen you pass defensively, we’ve never seen you make someone lose in open space. There are a lot more factors that go into making your movie than just a few great factors.” – JR Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)

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“If it’s fall, I would highly recommend sending [film] on a friday. This is travel day for most college football programs. They’re on buses or planes and they’re sitting next to their phones. That’s when they can reach a lot more messages.” – JR Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)

Advice on social networks

“What can you do to stand out? Social media a great tool. I’ve had kids contact me on LinkedIn. Persistence is a huge key just because our DMs get flooded. As a student-athlete, your stuff might get pushed to the bottom, but every time you send a new message, you get to the top. Find ways to be creative … You want to be strategic with who you’re tagging. There is a difference between persistence and spam. You don’t want to be the kid who’s spamming everyone. Don’t try to tag 30 coaches in one tweet.” – Marco Regalado (Rice Football)

“If you’re a student-athlete looking to get recruited, I suggest the only content you’re safe posting should be football-related. Anything else you like, retweet, or tweet, you need to think long and hard about it. If you are on this platform trying to recruit, we will scroll through your feed. If we’re following you, what you like will show up in our feed. I’ve dropped recruits I was following because there was content showing up on my social media that I don’t want to see just because they liked it. – Mike Pomfret (Allan Hancock College Football)

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“Social media is a big clue whether it’s coming from the staff or the coaches. I think more staff are becoming more savvy with different types of social media, so it’s not just Twitter anymore. It’s TikTok, Instagram and even LinkedIn.” – Patty Ohanian (Maryland Football)

Tips for being authentic in the process

“Be authentic. Who are you? I want to know your personality. If you’re a class clown, funny, fun guy, I want to see that from you. I think that’s fantastic and something that you can bring to the table and be part of the team. If you’re more reserved, that’s great too, but I want to know that. I want to know who you really are. I don’t want to know the same jargon and recruiting slogan that you’re giving every other school.” – Patty Ohanian (Maryland Football)

The questions college coaches are asking recruits

“If these college coaches are talking to their coaches, they’re not asking if they can play football. It’s no different than NFL scouts. They can see it with their own eyes. They ask if he shows up on time? How is he in the weight room? How is he in class? Does he come prepared? Let me see his notebook, does he take notes? How much film does he study? How does he study? I think they need to understand that they are not asking about the athletic game, they have seen it with their own eyes, that is why they are there. They are trying to find out who they are. At the end of the day, that’s what you’re dealing with as a coach.” – JR Sandlin (Oklahoma Football)