Recruiting Sites

We live in a world where there are recruiting sites for every single BCS school as well as a lot of sites for mid to low major schools.  All of these sites provide information to the masses that want to know where the next big national and in state star are going to eventually go for school.  Schools in the ACC, Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, and the Pac 12 all have several different sites for each school. These sites usually include scout.com, rivals.com, and the latest to get involved is 247sports.com.

If you read these sites on a consistent basis, you will notice that each site will tilt the article to make it look like "that school" is in the lead for a prospect.  If there are quotes involved, there are always positive quotes regarding the school that the site is run through. So fans will get super excited when Jimmy Basketball really likes Coach ______ and likes their style of play.  Kids and their families have become savvy enough to do this in order to please everyone.

Within the past couple of years the recruiting service industry has changed because of the unlimited contact that coaches can have with recruits.  Before, coaches could only contact the prospect twice a week and could theoretically use the recruiting service to contact the kid more. That's called a "grey area" that a lot of coaches work in order to use everything possible to get the players they want.

Another way that colleges use the recruiting services is to help recruit other kids.  How? Why? Coaches want other kids to see that "School A" is recruiting all these really good players and that could potentially draw more interest from recruits.  Coaches are savvy enough to know that most kids and their families read these recruiting sites on a consistent basis.  They also want to "be on the list" just like you see on TV while getting into an exclusive club.

Recruiting sites that technically don't have a tie to a certain school have their own biases as well.  These sites don't have any ties to schools but they tend to have ties to some AAU and high school programs.  They will write about a lot of different prospects from those particular AAU or high school programs because the people that run the site are good friends with the coaches from each program.  This idea will not only apply to articles but ranking of prospects as well.

Very rarely are these recruiting sites actually run by former college coaches who truly understand how the recruiting process works.  So, when you read the 2015 or 2016 rankings, you can't get too caught up in them. Coaches are looking for the best fit for their program and rankings really don't mean a thing. On top of that, what does the ranking actually mean? Is it, who is the best player now? Who will be the best college player? Rarely do the sites actually tell you this and a lot of the time, the sites are inconsistent in the ranking process.

Again, I hope this information is helpful.  If you have any questions regarding anything that I've talked about, please feel free to contact me at cwhop03@yahoo.com