How Recruiting Is Changing College Football
An insider perspective with journalist Sam Webb
—By Josh Abraham
Following the University of Michigan’s victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Rose Bowl, most major media outlets focused on covering the College Football National Championship game. However, during that time, the University of Tennessee had also received notice that they were now under investigation by the NCAA. According to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd, the investigation stemmed from “alleged major violations related to NIL dealings across multiple sports.” To clarify, NIL was a new initiative created by the NCAA in 2021 that allows college athletes to profit off of their Name, Image and Likeness.
Across all sports, the ability to recruit and bring in top-tier talent is essential for prolonged success. While the recruiting process differs slightly across sports, the primary methods remain fairly standardized in a university’s attempt to identify and attract elite talent. Recently, however, new policy changes in the NCAA, such as the introduction of Name, Image, and Likeness, have significantly complicated the recruiting landscape. Many universities have used NIL as a way of paying players under the table, opening themselves up to punishment from the NCAA. For Liam Radomski, a current senior at the University of Michigan and former collegiate baseball player, the recruiting process was simple, as NIL did not exist when he was being recruited. “The process has changed dramatically,” Radomski noted. “Coaches now have a new bargaining tool they can use to bring in any guy they want.” Collegiate recruiting is changing, and with the introduction of new policies like NIL, the recruiting landscape will continue to transform and evolve.
Webb’s work history with Michigan Athletics
Sam Webb is the managing editor for TheMichiganInsider.com, a subsidiary of the 247Sports network, and has worked as a recruiting columnist for the Detroit News. Webb has also made numerous television appearances on The Big Ten Network and CBS Sports as a recruiting insider. At TheMichiganInsider, Webb’s work covers all aspects of Michigan athletics such as Michigan’s recruiting efforts across multiple sports, Michigan’s performance in crucial matchups, current player interviews, and the broader impact of Michigan athletics on the larger collegiate scale.
Given his extensive background in collegiate recruiting, Webb has seen first-hand the constantly changing nature of the field. Asked to describe the concept of collegiate recruiting today, he responded, “It’s like dating, but not exclusively. You have kids that pop up on 247Sports, Rivals, and ON3; that’s a fraction of the student-athletes that go on to play intercollegiate athletics. So many more kids are involved in the recruiting process that don’t see the light of day when it comes to media coverage.”
The recruiting timeline and regulations
The recruiting process does not take place overnight; for a small portion of elite athletes, this can begin as early as middle school. As Webb puts it, “Most [high school] kids by their sophomore years are taking visits (to schools); however, really, really talented kids can start taking them their freshman year, or if they are part of a worthy program, you can see some younger kids get on visits that way, but typically you see it start picking up as a sophomore.”
As these athletes continue to their junior years, the process picks up and, as Webb puts it, “becomes very serious.” For the upper echelon of athletes, it’s at this point where interest from national programs materializes enabling athletes to get a deeper look into different universities’ programs and develop stronger relationships with their future coaches. Lastly, towards the end of their junior years, most athletes getting recruited lock in their scholarships, and notify universities of their commitment before signing their National Letter of Intent to continue their athletic careers.
The recruiting process is stressful and can be invasive. with recruits constantly communicating with different university coaches and media outlets, while also trying to balance academic and extracurricular commitments. For Radomski, the nature of the process grew to a point where he “could not have a simple family dinner without getting a notification from a different coach.” Thus, the NCAA instituted various rules and regulations ranging from visitation to communication schedules. According to the NCAA, these measures have been implemented in order to “promote the well-being of prospective student-athletes and coaches and ensure competitive equity.” By creating these guidelines, the NCAA eliminated schools from unfairly contacting and scheduling recruiting visits, preventing universities from obtaining an unfair recruiting advantage.
Early recruiting
Before delving into the history of collegiate recruiting, it’s essential to introduce the concept of pay-for-play. Before the NCAA introduced policies that standardized collegiate recruiting, universities were unregulated in their efforts to court elite talent. For the University of Tennessee that came in the form of cash in McDonald’s bags. According to sports reporter Dan Patrick, the university had designated staff who would “put the cash in McDonald’s bags and hand it to the recruits.”
When I asked Sam about his thoughts on pay-for-play and its presence and effect in collegiate recruiting, he noted that recruits are simply trying to maximize their money-making opportunities. “Some (recruits) are looking strictly for pay to play and some schools play that more than the others.”
Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL)
Whether collegiate athletes should be paid has been one of the most heavily debated issues in the country. Until June 2021, athletes could not accept any form of monetary payment based on their name, merchandise sales, sponsorships, and more in any shape or form. That was until the NCAA passed legislation allowing athletes to profit off of their own personal brands or their Name, Image, and Likeness.
While some schools took a more cautious approach in developing their NIL opportunities, others viewed it as a way to “legally” pay for players. When asked how NIL has affected collegiate recruiting, Webb said, “It swings recruiting more tangibly than any factor we have seen in recent years, and it makes your roster more volatile. For those (athletes) who don’t have a lot of playing time, not only do kids wanna play, they tie that to their NIL opportunities as well.” Given that only 1.6% of college football players make it to the NFL, NIL allows the remaining 98.4% to earn income prior to graduating.
With recruits acutely aware of the new legislation, many were quick to capitalize on it, but none more so than Jaden Rashada, the sixth-best quarterback in the country in the class of 2023, according to 247Sports. One of the schools recruiting Rashada the hardest was the University of Miami, a school known for providing significant NIL opportunities to recruits. In the case of Rashada, according to Jeremy Crabtree of On3, “Rashada agreed to a NIL deal with Miami mega-booster John Ruiz for $9.5 million.”
While pay-for-play has existed for nearly a century, many college football fans are only now beginning to recognize the negative impact it can have on the sport. “In order for schools to stay competitive, they need to be willing to shell out some serious cash,” said Neel Cheruvu, a senior at UofM and recruiting enthusiast. “As long as you have an entity who can bankroll your recruiting department and market it as NIL, you can bring in elite recruiting classes year-after-year.” Today, NIL legislation has grown significantly, and more firm legal precedents have been instituted to prevent universities from disguising pay-for-play as NIL deals.
Conference realignment and the future
The Universities of Texas (Austin) and Oklahoma shocked the country when they announced that they would be leaving the Big12 conference for the SEC in 2024. However, Webb points out that this is what the future of collegiate football will look like. This can be seen by schools like the University of Oregon and Southern California moving from the Pac12 conference to the Big Ten.
“Big conferences as we know them will be gone,” Webb notes. “I think we will have two major conferences that have separated themselves from the rest because the money will be so substantial for them that it makes sense for them to fragment off.” Webb clarifies that if there aren’t two major conferences, the Big Ten and SEC will at least obtain a firmer hold of the collegiate landscape regarding recruiting and TV revenue.
The metamorphosis of collegiate recruiting continues to change on a day-to-day basis. As the NCAA continues to regulate NIL and ensure equality in the recruiting process, it is evident that the landscape of collegiate football recruiting will remain dynamic and ever-evolving. However, amidst these changes, one thing will always remain constant: the pursuit of talent.
Feature Photo: courtesy of Alex Mertz on Unsplash