How One of the Nation's Top Programs Handles Recruiting

by Dan Greenspan, The Daily Trojan

Spend any time at Howard Jones Field on the campus of the University of Southern California and you'll see them - NFL scouts for the likes of Houston, Minnesota and Pittsburgh.

They are looking at juniors and seniors eligible for the next draft, because before 40 times and vertical leaps are measured they want to know what kind of work ethic they have and how ready they are for instruction. Pete Carroll, head football coach for the USC Trojans, is doing the same thing evaluating high school players.

"We try to do it exactly the same. We use the same mentality, same process.

"The only different being when the coach of the Trojans does it, web sites and message board take notice."

Welcome to the world of recruiting, the second season of college football. To win games, USC needs to sell itself to as many as 25 recruits every year. It is, as offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian said, a business.

"Recruiting is a lot like sales," he said. "We've got a product here, we've got a pretty good product. If you like our product, we've going to give you a $50,000-a-year scholarship to come to school at a great university.

"ESPN The Magazine senior writer Bruce Feldman describes what the process is like for one program in his new book "Meat Market." Feldman spent a year with Ole Miss and its coach Ed Orgeron, a name familiar to fans of USC, as it put together the class of 2007 with no ground rules or restrictions.Orgeron, the Trojans defensive line coach from 1998 to 2004, made his mark recruiting and developing the likes of Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson.

"I absolutely without hesitation trusted everything that Eddie did while he was here," Carroll said. "He was a huge asset."

The gruff Cajun, who traded an addiction to alcohol for recruiting, found himself trying to land the nation's hottest recruit, a Louisiana running back named Joe McKnight.

But McKnight, who signed with USC and has rushed for 253 yards and one touchdown as a freshman, became caught up in the intense scrutiny and pressure of the process. "Once I narrowed it down to three schools, I stopped taking phone calls," McKnight said. "It's hard to deal with the expectations, not to mention the distractions. Even for the kids with the solid family backgrounds, it's hard if their heads get blown up by the attention from the recruiters and the media and the fans."

Sarkisian said with the growth of online recruiting media, its nebulous evaluations and rankings can drastically impact a recruit. "The Internet has totally changed everything," he said. "There's so many more opinions now of players. The kids believe that opinion so much now that you not only fight other schools but you deal with the Internet stuff as well. "You can take any kid's 12 or 14 game schedule and put together a really nice highlight video. As coaches, we do a lot more game watching - what kind of effort does the young man play with. We find out a lot about their heart and effort in that manner."

Former All-American center Ryan Kalil proved himself in just such a manner to Orgeron, Sarkisian and the Trojans during a summer camp in 2002. They found Mike Williams playing basketball. Their methods produced recruiting classes that were among the best in college football history.

But even mighty USC has had to adjust, including taking verbal commitments from juniors.

Four players - wide receiver Randall Carroll, offensive lineman Kevin Graf, tight end Morrell Presley and linebacker Marquis Simmons - have made nonbinding pledges to join the program in 2009.

Kids are getting influenced to where they think they should make the decision as sophomores or juniors. Some schools will offer guys that early in hopes that they might consider them and some kids get their heads turned.

"I'm really in favor of slowing the process back down and giving these kids time to see schools and go to camps."

Carroll likened the acceleration in the process to letting underclassmen declare for the NFL Draft."They don't want freshmen coming out. They want a chance to evaluate the players, see them grow and mature and ensure their evaluations can be accurate and complete."You can't possibly make choices as well in that kind of evaluation process."

But Carroll said despite some changes, he still approaches recruiting the same way. "We like to be really thorough and make our decisions very judiciously."

No Calls From Coaches? Here's What to Do...

This time of year, solid D1 recruits have already heard from many, many college coaches via phone calls.

Even non-D1 division level programs, in all sports, are busy calling the senior athletes that they have information about. Phone calls are the primary way coaches get to know athletes before they bring them on campus or offer them a scholarship.

If coaches are calling you, it's a very exciting time in the recruiting process.

If you're a high school Senior athlete who isn't hearing from college coaches, something is wrong. And not taking steps to fix the problem will probably result in not playing your sport at the college level.

Here's what the experts at CSA-Prepstar recommend:

1. E-mail at least ten college coaches right away. Pick schools that are realistic for your athletic ability, and offer the academic programs that you want. Initiate some one-on-one contact via e-mail that will lead to those coveted phone calls.


2. Fill out the college's online recruiting form. If you go the school's website to look-up the coach's e-mail address, take a few minutes to fill out their program's online recruiting form. For many coaches, that's the start of their recruiting contact.


3. Call the coach yourself. Scary? Maybe a little. But if you feel you have what it takes, make an impression by calling to introduce yourself to a coach yourself.


4. Register your athletic profile. Getting your name online and with an organization that is trusted and used by college coaches is a great way to jump-start recruiting. Find out more by clicking here.

If you're already a CSA-Prepstar client, we encourage you to work with your personal Area Scouting Director to develop a list of college contacts that you are interested in, and manage the contacts that you are already receiving from the CSA-Prepstar recruiting network.

If you're an athlete that wants to go through the process on your own, that's O.K. too. But you have to be ready to take control of the process and make sure that your name is getting talked about in college coaching offices around the country. Doing some simple things to generate phone calls is the first step as we head into the last part of the year.