What’s the Problem?
Winning ranking camps just are not enough in 2024 to guarantee a college offer, especially with the transfer portal turning kicking scouting into its own pseudo NFL free agency.
Most recruits believe that if they win a kicking ranking camp, they’re going to get an offer. But, that’s not true.
It may make getting an offer more likely but it certainly is no guarantee.
In fact, in my experience, even kids in the top 10 of every recruiting kicking class are still all just as miffed and confused as the kids in the bottom 10 of their class - they just have a few more coaches talking to them.
A better approach might be this:
A New Perspective On Camps - You can still do ranking camps, they’re fun and nothing is wrong with them. But, go in knowing it’s not a silver bullet and you’re still going to have to do a lot of leg work (no pun intended) on your own recruiting.
Play For A Powerhouse - Play for a team with dense recruiting traffic from college coaches. Recruiting is based on trust and convenience. This is why the schools with a reputation for recruiting help only seem to get more recruiting traffic. Private trainers have pick locks to set players in touch with college coaches, but head coaches at recruiting powerhouse high schools possess the nuclear launch codes of getting an offer, fast.
Leverage Your Local Kicking Warlord - sorry I mean “coach” - What if your HS team is horrible? Leverage your private trainer, or seek out your local regional kicking warlord who will have at least some connections to local schools in your area. Ask them to refer your name to their coaching network. Who cares who claims you as long as you get your opportunity?
Get Stronger - Maximize your time in the weight room getting stronger, and continue to be a multi-sport athlete. There isn’t much technique difference between a D3 kicker and a D1 kicker but there is a huge difference in strength. You can’t control your height, but the average FBS kicker/punter is around 6 feet tall, 190-200lbs. That weight comes from weights and eating well. You’ve got to pass the “eyeball test”.
Get Smarter - Maximize your time crushing your academics. The portal has severely reduced an already small pool of scholarship money for kickers out of high school. “I don’t think we’re ever going to scholarship a high school kicker ever again.” as one high academic FCS STC told me this week. This means you’re looking at PWO’s everywhere, and PWO’s are held to higher GPA requirements than scholarship athletes are. The difference between a 3.0 and a 3.5 GPA isn’t IQ it’s 15 minutes a week of organization to meet with teachers, know what is due and be proactive.
Systematize Your Recruiting - Quantity beats quality, especially at first, when sending out DM’s to college coaches and making initial first contacts. You need to take a lot of shots on goal if you want the odds of a puck going in to increase.
In Summary
If you are doing all these things behind the scenes then you are going to get a lot more out of your next camp.
But, if you are just signing up for a kicking ranking camp believing the heavens will open dropping offers from the sky if you win it, then you are in for a rude awakening - most of the time.
This Week’s Action Step
Find a quiet space and time for 10 -15 minutes and take an honest-to-God look at your recruiting holistically:
Are my grades as good as they could be?
Am I as strong as I probably could be?
Am I really working on my technique as much as I could be?
Am I promoting myself and connecting with coaches as much as I could be?
Am I working with the right coaches who will help me connect to colleges?
Only you truly know the answers to these questions. A ranking camp won’t fix any of these for you.
That’s all for now,
Brendan
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
How To Use Twitter/X To Get Recruited - Join students in my multi-step offer creation system. Learn to create a high-quality Twitter/X recruiting presence and 6-12 pieces of high-performance social media content each week.
Recruiting Strategy - Join 100’s of other families like you who I’ve helped create a plan, provide support and navigate a confusing recruiting process to generate their own offers to places like Michigan, Duke, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Carnegie Mellon, Pomona, Georgetown, Villanova and more.
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