We did ask if the HC if he can offer soft support, but he said that “offering soft support would end up not really helping in the [admissions] process.” I guess it means soft support has no value.
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westwave:
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understood. you can cross off that school. (unless you do RD to see what happens)
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there is a lot of uncertainty out there. i would encourage you to embrace that uncertainty and continue to learn and adjust. and “keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars” (casey kasem).
i wish you and your son the very best. -
FOOTBALL RECRUITING=BUSINESS. for those who have time, i would highly recommend, david claerbaut, “recruiting confidential” (taylor trade publishing, 2003). the author was a college professor (sociology/psychology) and also an athletic director of a small college in the chicago-area. the book focuses on his relationship with his step son, as he navigated football recruiting as essentially a 2 star recruit. (fast: legit 4.55, but small for big time football: i think his true height and weight may have been 5 feet 8.5 inches and 170 pounds even after bulking up). in the beginning, the son dreamed of big time glory (big ten), and in the end, the ivies and the naval academies recruits him hard. claerbaut recounts how:
a. western michigan assistant coach keeps calling but never offers a scholarship noting the head coach’s strict scholarship policy (the school envisioned him as a walk on)
b. a mid-level I-A school offers a scholarship in writing, and the son never hears from the school again.
c. bowling green’s urban meyer offers a scholarship, but meyer’s plan was to have the son play db, not rb (claerbaut and son never seem to realize this)
d. several coaches treat them like kings. a few months later, the coaches act as if they were paupers.
e. the naval academy’s slot back coach jeff monken (currently army head coach) made the father and son very comfortable. (at that time, head coach paul john ran the trip option).
f. the father thought that monken would serve as a good role model and another father figure for his step son, who did not have an easy childhood. when monken visited their home, monken said that his players talk to him about anything: school work, social life etc.
g. the father thought that harvard’s tim murphy was fidgety. murphy emphasized how attending harvard will make the son very financially secure. both navy and harvard see the son as a rb.
h. the father recommends the son to attend navy. the son commits to navy. at the induction day in july, the son decides not to sign the roll book, and decides to renege on his commitment. the father contacts harvard that month, and the son enrolls at harvard that fall.
i. unfortunately for the son, harvard took in a transfer from I-A school, and that rb set school records, and the son lettered 2x as db (and did not play much).
j. the son’s life course took a dramatic turn upon graduation from college, but not in a way that that neither the son or father could have envisioned. in the end, the father was right.
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@westwave I would not give up on applying to the 1AA high ranked academic school If it is your top choice. I do know athletes that were in similar situations (i.e., just missed out on getting a LL , were told if they applied and got in on their own they would be welcome on the team, etc.) and got admitted and played their sport.
The D3 coaches may understand and given the size of football rosters, if the 1AA did not work out, and you got into the D3, there would more than likely be a roster spot for you. Good luck.
Football is a little out of my wheelhouse, but I do know roster sizes are being reduced at many D1 programs. What is the trickle down impact on Ivy/D3? Football is not quite the same animal as high AI, sports like swimming and XC but I’d still expect some impact on roster depth.
NESCAC football rosters are limited to 84 for this fall after the limit had been expanded from 75 a few years back due to COVID.
I am not sure if there are limits at other similar D3 football conferences
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Yes, NESCAC limits the football rosters which I think is a good thing and the coaches would typically note that during recruiting. I didn’t know that the NESCAC increased from 75 to 84 for football. NESCAC football season is also shorter than most other D3 seasons which I felt was a recruiting selling point.
Many non NESCAC D3 football teams have very larger rosters of 100+ , with quite a few kids not dressing for away games.
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Many a walk on has received a scholarship as a soph or jr, even in D1. Last year the freshman center at CU became the started by midyear (and then Prime didn’t give him a scholarship so he transferred). Sometimes it’s being in the right spot at the right time, sometimes it’s good coaching, sometimes luck.
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Westwave:
I haven’t read every word on this thread, but from what I’m seeing, right now, your son has the choice of:
- Applying to Div 1AA school with essentially no coach’s support. If he gets in, he can be on the team. If I’m hearing this from the coach, I wouldn’t be that excited about potentially playing football at that school, because unless he develops, the coach doesn’t see a potential player in him. Plenty of the 30 supported recruits won’t see much playing time and will quit. Sitting the bench isn’t much fun for most players, and most quit when they see that they’ll never play.
---- He has to get in on his merits, and he can play football or try to walk on to other sports like rugby or perhaps crew. But he faces the same long odds of any other applicant there. And at 170, unless he grows, he’ll be very small in that league.
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Three-letter Boston D3 school: This sounds to me like a weak offer. Granted, that school is unbelievably difficult to get into, but a 30% to 50% chance at getting in sounds kind of meager to me, when there are other schools that will give him a 90%+ chance of getting in. Is 3-letter school that much more desirable than other elite academic Division 3 schools that could give him a guaranteed admission?
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UChicago’s EA requirement is odd, but if that can be done quickly and you can get a true commitment, that would be a true bird-in-the-hand. Will the coach really commit, or does that have to wait a few months to materialize?
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D3 Pittsburgh is likely the great school I’m thinking about. Will they commit? Is a 90%+ commitment from them better than waiting for 3-letter school? I’m really not sure that employers will make the distinction between that school and 3-letter school or U Chicago, should that happen. And I am someone who makes employment decisions.
I was recruited back in the Stone Age when the system was far different, but heard plenty of coach’s lies when I was recruited (one coach even made up a game that he said they won – easy enough to confirm that the game was never played) and saw the recruitment at my school at that time. I’ve also seen my roommates’ kids get recruited at elite D3, Ivy and scholarship programs. Part of the message is be wary of coaches, many of whom can be tricky with their words and some even ruthless. Find a way to force them to make a true commitment.
To me, it seems like the best option would be to go to the school that offers a real bird in the hand.
Granted, your son will certainly have other options, such as RPI, if everything goes awry, which I think is a great school with a comparable football team to 3-letter school. In my eyes, RPI is almost-elite and way underrated because of its small grad school, unless you need a lot of aid (they can be stingy with aid there, but do have some good merit scholarships). For some reason, admission there is fairly predictable based on GPA and test scores, and they admit 58%. You haven’t mentioned if you have need for aid, but if so, I’d highly recommend going for the meets-full-need school that offers a bird in the hand.
I simply don’t like what I’m hearing from 3-letter school, and in my opinion, would recommend that your son not make any commitment to the coach based upon it. Is the coach willing to support him if he makes an EA application with no promise to commit to 3-letter trade school (as their nextdoor neighbors call it)? I’d consider Boston FCS as an RD option if the admissions gods smile upon him, and he isn’t really that interested in playing college football. U Chicago is great, of course, if you can get some kind of formal commitment and your son likes the school. And it seems like he has or will have other options.
Good luck with all of this and to your son. I’d really like to see this work out for him.
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Additional thoughts:
Bear in mind that the schools mentioned have one thing in common - tremendous academics. Beyond that, Boston, Chicago and Pittsburgh are very different locations and locations alone shape the school vibe and college experience significantly. With an athlete, I like to look at the coach and the program as a critical factor, but as someone mentioned, we have to take the ACL factor into account. We’ve all seen career-ending injuries (along with the coach getting fired after the first year, which happened to me and my teammates, to our dismay).
Also, with 3-letter school and Pittsburgh school: I always get a bit nervous with schools that don’t offer the full breadth of classes. Your son may be STEM-oriented now, but so many kids change, and at the STEM schools, the major they want may not really be there. I went to Princeton assuming I’d be a STEM major, probably Chemistry, over the summer decided to sample some courses throughout the many departments and wound up as a psychology major, because that was what interested me the most. I would have had to really grunt through any STEM major, because I don’t have the attention to detail that it requires, even though my math and science skills have always been great. 17-year-olds change their minds a lot, and I did meet a grad student in college who actually was the only BS in French I’ve ever met (an MIT grad). It’s easier and cheaper if you don’t have to transfer if you change majors. (No one I knew ever would have imagined me as anything but a STEM major from when I was 10 years old through high school).
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