As a parent you want to help your son as much as possible, especially when it comes to achieving their goal of playing college football. If your son has reached his senior year and is still unsigned, time is really of the essence. You need to really focus in on certain things to get the job done. In this article we will go over all the necessary steps you need to take and give you some additional tips along the way.
Discuss Different College Divisions With Your Unsigned Senior
Even if your unsigned senior is lazer-focused on going NCAA Division 1, you should still sit down together and discuss the other divisions that are available to them. These divisions include the NCAA Division 2, NCAA Division 3, NAIA, NJCAA Division 1, NJCAA Division 2, NJCAA Division 3 and CCCAA. All these different divisions can offer great opportunities for your unsigned senior to play college football and should be considered. We would recommend contacting coaches in these divisions to see what they have to offer.
Get Your Unsigned Senior’s Information Together
All college coaches, no matter what division they coach in, are going to want to see your unsigned seniors football profile. You need to gather all their football information together and present it in an easy to read, clear format so the coaches can get a good idea of what your son is capable of. You will be sending this out to college coaches who are still recruiting your son’s position. The information you need to have for this is as follows: full name, date of birth, height, weight, primary position, GPA and stats alongside their highlight video. Make sure that if you include one rep max’s and other football achievements etc. you can back them up.
Update Your Unsigned Seniors Video
At this point you probably have a good highlight video for your unsigned senior. If you have any football tournaments, combines, showcases or any other good games played that you haven’t got round to editing, now is the time. You want to make sure that your unsigned senior has an up-to-date video that clearly demonstrates, to the coaches, their skills and abilities on the football field. When editing the highlight video, make sure that the coach can clearly see your son in every clip. We recommend using a circle to clearly define him (but you can use whatever suits your preference).
Sectioning up the video might also be a good idea so you can make sure you include highlights of all your son’s football skills relevant to his position that he is trying to get recruited for. Also, football coaches are constantly assessing the potential a player has to develop, they will be considering your son’s body type and size. Coachability and academics are also high on their list too.
We recommend that the highlight video is no longer than 5 mins. From our experience, and speaking with college coaches, they also prefer video to have no music. Not including this will also save you effort and time that can be better spent on getting your son recruited. Also, make sure you have your unsigned seniors best full game on hand. Interested college coaches are likely to request to see this. Make sure you update his highlight video at the mid-way point of his senior season and at the end of his senior season.
Contact College Coaches Who Are Still Recruiting for Your Unsigned Senior
Now that you have information and highlight video completely updated, you are ready to begin contacting college coaches. You want to make sure that you are contacting college coaches who are still recruiting your sons position. This will be time better spent on your part. There is no need to contact a coach who is recruiting only Quarter Back if your son is an Offensive Tackle. Also, you are more likely to get good responses from contact college coaches who are recruiting your sons position. You should start contacting college coaches in August. You should be regularly contacting college coaches from August all throughout his senior year.
Discussing Offers With Your Unsigned Senior
Once you have put some significant time into contacting college coaches, and you start receiving interest from college coaches, this is going to start to give you an idea of what possibilities are realistic for your unsigned senior. This is a good time to sit down together and discuss what levels you are receiving interest from. We recommend that your unsigned senior talks to all coaches who are interested and, does some research on the school and the football program before ruling anything out. If you are not receiving NCAA Division 1 offers, this would be the time to decide whether or not your unsigned senior wants to consider playing NCAA Division 2, NCAA Division 3, NAIA, NJCAA Division 1, NJCAA Division 2, NJCAA Division 3, or CCCAA.
The other option which you can pursue at this time, if your unsigned senior wants to continue to push to play NCAA D1 football, is to go the JUCO route. Going the JUCO route means attending a 2-year Junior College. This is a good way for players to still get a 2-year degree while playing JUCO football which will allow your unsigned senior more time to continue their pursuit of playing NCAA D1. By going to a Junior College football program, your unsigned senior will continue to develop their skills and abilities by playing against higher level competition. Also, many NCAA Division 1 coaches go to junior college football games to recruit players to their 4-year schools. After graduating from a Junior College you can transfer directly to an NCAA Division 1 school and be immediately eligible to play.
If your unsigned senior doesn’t have any NCAA D1 offers and is undecided about attending a NCAA D2, NCAA D3, NAIA or going the JUCO route, we recommend going on campus visits to 4 year schools and Junior Colleges. This will give your unsigned senior an opportunity to speak with the coaches in person and talk football. By going on campus visits, you can check out what facilities the schools have to offer. You can also compare the 4-year school campus visits to the JUCO campus visits and see what the differences are and, if this option will work for your unsigned senior, or not.