Are College Coaches Watching Your Film?

*Originally posted 5/15/2023

I think one of the false-premises we start with in our recruiting journey, is that college coaches aren't watching your film. The idea is that you might be reaching out to them, they might be getting your email, but they aren't clicking that video link in your email. I want to push back on this premise a little bit and try to answer the question,

"Are college coaches watching my film?"

Most likely they are. If I were to tell you that 90% of the college coaches that receive and open your email are watching your film, would you believe me?

If this is true or even remotely true, then what is the need for applications like SR and NCSA that send you text and emails EVERY TIME a college coach watches your film?

I asked this question on Instagram and received a dozen or so responses from college coaches. All of them were "YES!" Not that is a small sample size and that's okay. But let's go through the process just a little bit:

1) You email a school

2) You get a notification from SR or NCSA that the coach viewed your profile and then viewed one of your film links

3) You get some traffic in University Athlete (maybe an eval) within their system

It's safe to say that most emails that get to a college coach are being opened at one point or another. It might take a month and it might take 5 minutes. You never really know. But if it shows up in their inbox, it is getting opened. If they open your email then they are clicking on the film link you give them. From there a lot of different things can happen, but in general the coach will mark you in University Athlete (UA) in one way or another. It might be really positive or it might be something to the affect of "send camp invite." Either way, this is typically how hundreds of athletes are marked in UA each week by college coaches.

Knowing this, we can determine that the opening of the email, viewing your profile or viewing your film doesn't necessarily communicate interest. This process is simply repeated 100s of times each day across the country.

Now I want to stop here and communicate clearly that this is NOT a reason to only send 1 email. You need to consistently communicate with college coaches throughout your recruiting process. Please send more than one email. Please send at least 3 emails to a school in one season (club or high school) before you give up. Sometimes sending more will help!

If college coaches are watching our film, then are all the notifications helpful? Not really. It's good to know that college coaches are getting your emails (sometimes they aren't) but those notifications don't do more than that. Even if a school watches your film 10 times, it doesn't mean they are interested.

How schools communicate interest IS important.

I always ask families - "What did the school do next?" Camp invite. Questionnaire. Did they respond directly to you or to me (or someone at your club)?

It's possible that their note in UA was, "We need to watch her play live" which is good because it means they liked what they saw on film and they want to watch you in person.

I worry that getting those notifications means that you're "done" with the process. Now you can take a deep breath and WAIT for the coaches to just start offering you scholarships. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. If college coaches are going through the steps listed above, that's great. But it's really just step 1 in the process. You need to get them to your court and that takes more emails and more communication. You need to continue to communicate how interested you are in their school. You're off to a great start, but you need to keep going.

Back to the original question:

"Are college coaches watching my film?"

I think in general and from my experience the last 5 years, the answer is yes. They are watching your film whether or not you have your notifications turned on.

If this is true or even remotely true, then what is the need for applications like SR and NCSA that send you text and emails EVERY TIME a college coach watches your film? Get ready and organized for June 15th!

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