Your Expectations Are The Problem

Painfully few recruits will get an offer to a coveted FBS program.

But, the X, TikTok and Instagram algorithms don’t care about reality. They want one thing - engagement.

So, when there is a commitment or an offer from a big time FBS college program, the social algorithms go into overdrive pushing it out to timelines and “For You” feeds across the demographics most likely stop and scroll on it.

Less than 2% of HSFB players will end up at one of these big time schools, but 98% of their social media feeds will be consumed by content about those painfully few offers.

This creates the false expectation that you’re missing out, somehow.

Football, as a sport, also has in it a deeply embedded belief that if one works hard enough, they can overcome an obstacle in their way.

Think about the movie Rudy - a walk on at Notre Dame gets his brains bashed in for 4 years to play a few minutes of garbage time at the end of his senior game.

But, some obstacles are not things that hard work alone will overcome.

You can’t become genetically taller, or faster, or stronger.

Hard work will certainly get you a lot closer to your maximum ceiling of potential - whatever that may be - but it won’t make you an FBS level player if you’re a 5’8 175lb punter.

The thing about these sought after FBS programs is that everyone is your competition.

Every kid in America has heard of Ohio State, Michigan or Stanford - certainly every kicker has.

But, take, say, Williams College or Wesleyan University - two of the best Ivy-League-like degrees you could get with DIII football.

Maybe just 8 kickers have ever heard of them, 5 might actually have the ability to get admitted to them, 3 might be offerable, and 1 might actually commit there.

8 billion competitors vs. 8 competitors are much better odds when looking at a school.

Well meaning K-12 education also fosters a sense that a child’s potential is unlimited and malleable.

With the right support and belief, any child can do anything.

Again, “work hard” and you can be DI too.

But, while the human mind and spirit may have unlimited potential, the human body doesn’t.

So many recruits sit on great offers to great, but smaller DIII/DII colleges for too long waiting on a magical DI offer that never arrives only to see their smaller school offers fade.

You are not “settling” for less than you deserve when you get an offer to a school that respects your physical reality as an athlete.

The human mind is unlimited, the human body, less so.

The sport of football is vastly different from the activity of recruiting for football.

Football the sport rewards:

Football the recruiting activity rewards:

How can do diametrically opposed value systems coexist in the same sports space is beyond me.

Most recruits do not know what they want.

At best, most have some vague idea of what success looks like - “I want to go D1”

But, what does that mean?

Most kids can find the starter at the college they want to play for on Hudl and find their HS tape.

If they really want to know if they’re being realistic, they’d have to ask themselves, “Do I look anything like this?”

If a recruit was serious about going DI they’d have a specific plan, specific measureables and specific timelines.

But, the more specific your goals are, the more likely it is you’ll need to face reality to get them.

Vague recruiting goals are safe harbors for delusional thinking.

BC

If you’d like to work together, shoot me a DM @brendancahill_