Recruiting happens on a spectrum.
The players with the best measurables have the best choices. Period.
The better your grades are, the more schools can admit you, thus the more schools that can offer you, potentially.
The taller, bigger, faster, stronger you are, the more schools that will offer you.
No one ever gets yelled at when the 6’5, 240 lbs defensive end didn’t pan out because he has the measurables that were safe to hide behind.
And, if your recruit doesn’t pan out, well, you can always just go pluck an already developed player out of the transfer portal that a smaller staff already invested a lot of time and mentoring into developing for you.
It’s not fair, but it is reality - at least for now.
The recruits who have the hardest time finding teams are the ones who fall into the murky valley of “meh.”
Their grades are not so good that they can afford to ignore their athletic performance, but their athletic performance isn’t good enough that they can afford to lose focus on their grades.
And so, they are just smart enough to get the higher academic schools talking to them, but are also maybe just physically talented enough to get the bigger schools talking to them. Ultimately, however, they are not enough of either - academics or athletics - to force either end of the spectrum to pull the trigger on an offer.
I think the hardest thing to do in recruiting or the college search is to not only plant a flag in the ground as a player and parent(s) saying: THIS is exactly what we are after, but also be realistic about where their grades and measurables can get them access to.
You could look at it another way.
The lower your grades are, the better measurables you’d better have.
The worse your measurables are, the better your grades better be.
The tension between measurables and grades is inversely proportional in most cases.
Emotionally, this is an excruciating conversation to have with yourself, your child, or your player. The pressure to fulfill the potential of your child as an American sports parent is immense. But potential as a person is not to be conflated with potential as a sports player.
The families who cannot be honest with themselves about where their measurables get them access to are usually in for a long, challenging recruiting process.
It’s doubly challenging for coaches of players to be blunt with families about their child’s potential as a player too. HS coaches are paid to be optimists. College coaches are paid to be pessimists. HS coaches round up on talent. College coaches round down on talent. HS football and college football are the same sport, but played on different planets. Coaches mostly are torn between fostering their players’ dreams, but at the same time, not wanting them to lose touch with reality.
Recruiting is just hard no matter how you look at it.
That’s all for now,
BC