Most high school players dream of receiving a scholarship to play college football. Unfortunately, most won’t.
But there are some things that you can do to improve your chances of getting one, and today I’ll be sharing some tips with you that can do just that.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Attend Football Camps. There’s no better way to show college coaches and scouts what you can do than in-person.
There are national and regional camps out there that can give you some great exposure. Some of the top notch camps have tons of coaches from big time programs watching (and sometimes coaching) the drills that high school players are put through.
These camps also give you a chance to speak to coaches, allowing them to get a feel for who you are and your personality.
The camps also give you, and maybe even your parents, a chance to establish and build relationships with the coaches from the college programs.
If you have a good idea of where you’d like to play, go to the camps held by those schools as well. You can meet even «more» of the coaches at your «dream school» by attending their school’s camp.
Relationships are important in all walks of life, and college football is no different.
Also try to get to camps that are supported by recruiting services like Scout.com and Rivals100.com. These camps put up rankings that college coaches pay close attention to.
Underarmour hosts combines that are highly respected by collegiate coaches as well.
Your chances of landing a scholarship go up tremendously if you can get a decent ranking on one of these recruiting services’ player rankings.
2. Register with the NCAA Eligibility Center. – Registering with the NCAA Eligibility Center will help you identify schools that you academically qualify to be a part of.
If you can, do this before the start of your Junior year in high school. This will help keep you from trying to go to schools that you might not even qualify for, which will help you spend your time more wisely throughout this process.
Once you’ve registered, update your information with them regularly. This will make sure the guidance you’re getting from them is stays accurate, otherwise you’re wasting your time.
3. Figure out your passion early, if you can. This may not help you land a scholarship, but it can help you make sure that the school you choose will set you up for a successful post-football transition.
I urge you to put in the effort to figure out your passion while you’re in high school. This will help you narrow down the schools you want to try to get in, because you can focus on the schools that have good programs related to your passion.
I understand that your love and focus is football, but even if you make it pro, you’re going to be done playing by your early 30’s, if you’re lucky enough to have a pro career that lasts that long.
There’s a lot of life left to live at that age. Think long term and make a smart move by focusing on schools that will help you with your post-football life.
If you’re not sure how to go about this, Googling «how to find your passion» is a good place to start. Go through the different exercises you’ll find online. Don’t expect the answer to come to you immediately. It may take weeks, months, or even years, so start on this as early as your freshman or sophomore year in high school (or even earlier), if you can.
4. Figure out the level of football you can play realistically. Unfortunately, everybody doesn’t have the talent to play Division 1A football.
If you have Division II talent and speed, and you’re going to USC and Notre Dame camps, you could be wasting your time; especially if you’re heading into your senior year in high school.
To get a better idea of where you are talent-wise, try to attend some FBS (D1A), FCS (D1-AA), DII, and DIII games at schools in your area. This will let you observe, firsthand, the level of competition at each level so you can make a more realistic assessment.
Then, make a list of the schools you’re interested in looking further-into.
5. Research the programs/schools you’re interested in. Try to start step before your junior year in high school, if you can. That way, you’ll be able to go through this process without feeling rushed.
On top of that, coaches love to see that you’re progressing, so if you can expose yourself to them early, you might be able to impress them when they see the progress you (hopefully) made in your senior year.
Improvements show hard work, dedication, and a bunch of other positive attributes coaches love to see in prospect.
But back on-topic. Which schools offer a program that you want to study? Which schools will have players graduating the soonest at your position? How far away from home do you want to go?
These are examples of things you want to know to increase the chances that you’ll earn a degree in a field you like, and that you’ll have a good shot at getting some playing time when you get there.
6. Narrow-down your list. Once you’ve figured out your passion, identified the level of college football you can realistically play at, and taken care of the rest of the steps listed above, narrow-down your list of schools you’re interested in.
Again, this will help ensure that the time you put into this process is focused and efficient. If you’re trying to promote yourself to 30 schools, you might miss out on the 5 schools that you had a realistic chance at getting a scholarship at, if you don’t narrow-down your list.
7. Research to find colleges that will need a player at the position you play. I’m personally not as sold on this one, but there are many that swear by it, so I thought I’d include it.
This step requires that you look into the colleges on your list and find out which ones will have a void in the position that you play.
The purpose of this is to find school’s where you’ll have a good shot at getting playing time, and also so that you can aim at teams that will have more of a need at your position.
I’m not a big fan of this step, because there’s always unexpected variables involved. For example, players get moved to new positions all the time, so without knowledge of where a team would want to have you play, you could rule out a school when they might’ve been interested in you.
On top of that, players quit and transfer all the time, so just because there appears to be a need right now, that need could be filled next season, or vice-versa.
So you’ll just have to do your best on this step; or «x» it out altogether, if you want.
8. Start promoting yourself. Once you’ve figured out the issues mentioned above, you want to start promoting yourself.
Most colleges have low recruiting budgets, so if you’re initializing the contact with the football programs yourself, you’re making it easy (and cost effective) for them to learn about you.
If you don’t take the initiative to contact «them», you’re taking a chance that they may not learn about you at all.
Here are some ideas on how you can do it:
Make a YouTube highlight video of your performance on the field. Just 3-5 minutes long, tops. This film’s purpose is to generate interest, so you only want your top plays.
Keep in mind that coaches don’t have a bunch of time to watch your video, so make sure it’s short, and shows only your best plays.
You can do this easily with Windows Media Player and Windows Live Movie Maker that come with Windows, so you may not need to buy software.
The quality of game film can be real bad at some high schools, so make sure you do what you need to do to get an understanding of the quality of the video your high school provides.
If it’s bad, you may want to invest a couple hundred dollars into buying your own camera, and have your parents film your games from the stands.
Before each snap, make sure you’re highlighted so they can easily recognize who you are.
College coaches have to first be able to see you, before they can like what they see, so this is critical.
Make an academic and athletic resume that highlights your performance both in the classroom and on the field. These will give the coaching staff an idea of whether or not you qualify athletically and academically for their schools.
Make sure the athletic resume contains a link to your YouTube highlight video.
Fill-out a questionnaire with each school. These questionnaires are often available at the school’s football website. If you don’t see it there, call the football department and inquire about how you can go about filling one out.
These questionnaires give coaches the information they need, and are a great way of introducing them to you, if they haven’t already heard of you.
Email (preferred), or mail your athletic and academic resume to college coaches at the schools you’re interested in. You can find the names of the coaches and staff on the team’s website.
You can search for their email address and/or phone number on the school’s directory on the school’s website.
If you don’t hear back from anyone within a couple weeks, follow up with the coaches that you sent your information to. Usually, if they’re interested, they’ll get back with you, you won’t have to hound them.
If you get signs that they’re not interested, move on to another school, or reach out to them again in the future.
Use some of the online resources available. There’s a ton of websites and services out there that are designed to help increase exposure of high school athletes.
Many of them claim to help you gain more exposure to college coaches, but I’d be wary of services that charge huge fees. I’m just not personally sold on them to the point of where I’d spend a lot of money on paying for a service like that, but that’s just my opinion.
NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network is one of the more reputable ones however, and they have a free and a paid option.
My recommendation is that you research all of the available services and go with your gut on which ones you want to participate in.
9. Work on your academics. Do you want to increase the number of schools you can go to? Do you want to avoid having to accept scholarships from schools you don’t like, just because you couldn’t academically qualify for your top choice schools?
If so, you need to get serious about your grades as early on in high school as you can.
To put yourself in the best position possible, I’d try to maintain a 3.0 GPA or higher. Otherwise, you’re putting yourself at-risk of being eliminated from consideration from some schools due to academic qualifications.
Same rule applies with your SAT and ACT. Your grades along with your test results in the SAT and/or ACT will determine what schools you can be considered a candidate for, and which you can’t.
Even if you don’t end up with a football scholarship, the better your grades and test scores, the better your chances are of landing some type of academic-based scholarship to help you get through college.
10. Use your grades to sweeten the deal for the prospective school. I recently read about a high school coach who’s been able to get as many as 19 players from just one of his senior classes, college scholarships.
He says that for some of the marginal players that aren’t top-notch recruits, he gets them other methods of financial aid, and uses that as part of the pitch to sell the players to collegiate programs.
This can be attractive to schools, as they may be more apt to take a marginal player, if they don’t have to pay for a full scholarship.
I don’t know details as to how he’s doing this, but I’d imagine that academic qualifications come into play for some of these «other» methods of financial aid that he leverages to help his kids land scholarships this way.
11. Play Other Sports. This may not play as big of a role as some of the other items in this article, but every little bit counts.
Playing other sports in high school shows your athleticism, and every coach in America wants players that are athletic, every position. Not only that, but even if football is the sport you like the most, you can use the other sports to help you become a better football player.
For example, recruiters love offensive linemen that used to play basketball in high school, because it shows that they’re at least fairly athletic, and can move their feet.
The footwork you develop from guarding players in basketball alone (even if you don’t have a good offensive game) can help you tremendously as a football player.
12. Show Leadership Abilities. I doubt if a team will offer you a scholarship based off of your leadership abilities alone, but it will definitely improve your overall profile if you can show that you’re a leader.
If you’re in any clubs at your high school, consider running for leadership positions.
Among many, one of the reasons colleges are so attracted to leaders, is because when you play sports for a university, you’re «representing» the university.
As a collegiate athlete, you’re going to be faced with a lot of temptations, and usually leaders have the abiltiy to go against the grain to do what they feel is morally right.
Most teams and schools put forth a lot of effort to avoid bringing in players that could cause trouble or damage the image of the school or program in the public eye.
13. Train Properly. Sometimes, players put too much focus on getting exposure, and not enough on training properly.
Don’t forget that your athletic ability and performance is what gets the collegiate coaches interested in the first place! Training is outside of the scope of this article, but make sure your offseason workout is helping develop the size, speed, agility, strength, power, and quickness necessary to be an attractive collegiate football candidate.
You also want to make sure you’re doing position-specific drills to make sure you’re getting better at your technique. Your technique could be the one thing that gives you the nod over another candidate, you just never know.
It sounds like cliche’, but the little things like eating right, getting enough rest at night, and working on your flexibility and core strength can make a big difference in your performance on the field.
Best of luck!