New Recruiting Trends?

As we have progressed through these new recruiting rules over the last couple of classes I have seen small changes here and there and a couple big changes that college coaches have made. Trying to pull back and look at this current recruiting class from as wide of an angle as possible, it seems that a majority of college coaches seem to be going in 1 of 2 ways when it comes to offers.

The first situation is not a "new" one, but as I talk to more and more college coaches across the country, there seems to be some more leaning in this direction. Many that wouldn't have taken this approach a year or two ago are now making this potentially the best option. This "trend" if you want to call it that, is basically offering more than one athlete a scholarship at a time. Whoever says "yes" first gets the scholarship. In most of the situations I have heard about, an athlete comes on a visit, is given an offer and then given a deadline of roughly two weeks. After two weeks the offer doesn't go away, but the #2 athlete on their list is coming for a visit and they are going to get the same offer. I think more and more coaches are choosing this path because they are in a situation where they can. What I mean by that is they have multiple athletes at the top of their list that the staff is really excited about and those athletes seem to be really excited about. If the program has a lot of high level athletes in the area/state surrounding them and travel for visits is easy for those athletes, then this makes sense. The program potentially isn't suffering a huge drop in talent between their top two choices. Where coaches in the past didn't do things like this because it sent the "wrong message" to athletes, they are now in a position to where they can't let their #3 athlete get away.

The second situation that I see a lot of college coaches stepping into right now is more of a "wait and see approach". Maybe they don't have a top athlete on their list at the moment; maybe the want to see how their transfers pan out; maybe they are more inclined to get athletes off the transfer portal; or maybe they just want to see how their team does in the current season before they start looking 2 years down the road. Pick a variable, but for whatever reason I have talked to a bunch of coaches this summer that aren't getting all caught up (or have just stopped getting caught up in) in the June 15th craziness. Most are communicating to athletes that they will "watch you again next club season" and things like that. Maybe they don't want to have all the interference of recruiting heavily during the competition season?

Certainly there are still coaches offering athletes in August and sitting on those offers until November/December or later, but that seems to be happening less and less. These two options SEEM to be the approach that more and more college coaches are taking...at least for now. Maybe if a school doesn't get their top two kids after they put them on a short deadline of 2 weeks, then they just start their list over and plan on watching the transfer portal in November or circle back around with athletes during the club season.

Each coach and program is going to do what they think will work best for them in their current situation. But these two options seem to be what a lot of college coaches are trending towards.

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