How to Actually Get Offers at Camp

I sat down with Coach Matt McCarty, Head College Football Coach at Northwestern College in Iowa. He won a national championship in 2022. He has been to the national title game three times in the last four seasons. His career record is 90-22. He was the National Coach of the Year in 2022.

And he told me something that should change how every parent thinks about camps.

He signed 50 players in his last recruiting class. 35 of them came from his own camps. If your son is not going to the right camps the right way, he is not getting recruited. Period.

Most Camp Invites Are a Waste of Time

Your son is getting camp invites in his inbox right now. Mega camps. All-Star games. Showcase events. Most of them are a waste of time and money.

Coach McCarty does not run a mega camp. He runs three individual prospect camps a year at Northwestern. One in April before the spring game. Two in June. Every kid who shows up is there to be evaluated by his staff.

If your son gets a camp invite, do not just show up. Reach out to the coach first. Ask if he has watched your son's film. Ask if there is interest. If the coach does not know your son is coming, your son will end up on the third field to the right with no one watching.

Your son can only go to six to eight camps in a summer. Maybe less. Every one of those camps needs to matter. If he wastes a weekend at a camp where the coach does not know his name, that is a weekend he could have spent at a camp where a coach is actively evaluating him.

Your Son Has to Know His Level Before He Starts Reaching Out

One of the biggest mistakes I see families make is reaching out to the wrong coaches. A kid with small college film is emailing Power Four schools. He thinks he is getting interest because he is getting generic email blasts. He is not.

Coach McCarty said it directly. If your son is not offered by a Power Four or FCS school by his junior year, it is probably not happening at that level. Those programs have scouting departments. They already know every kid who is going to play for them.

But at the smaller college level, it is the wild west. Coaches are actively searching for players. That means your son has to be findable. And before he can be findable to the right coaches, he has to know what level he is actually playing at.

Get his film evaluated. Know whether he is a Power Four, Group of Five, FCS, D2, or smaller college player. Then every phone call, every DM, every camp trip goes to schools at the right level. Every bit of recruiting activity compounds. Wrong level means wrong compounding. That is how kids burn a whole summer and end up with zero offers.

Relationships Do Not Happen Overnight

Coach McCarty said something I tell families all the time. Relationships do not happen overnight. If your son waits until his senior year to start reaching out to coaches, he is already behind.

Start as a freshman or sophomore. Not for offers. For relationships. Follow coaches on X who recruit at your son's level. Engage with their content. Like their postgame recaps. Comment on their wins. Coaches notice. They are building their platforms too. A kid who engages consistently for two years stands out.

Send film when you have it. Varsity film. JV film if that is all you have. Get on school questionnaires. Make it easy for coaches to contact you. Put your name, your phone number, your email, your school, your GPA, and your graduation year on every social media profile you have.

Coach McCarty is recruiting the 2027 and 2028 classes right now. His 2026 class was done before Christmas. The timeline keeps moving up. If your son is waiting until his senior year, the scholarships are already gone.

Grades Are a Scholarship Multiplier

Here is something most parents have no idea about. A 3.6 GPA is worth real dollars in recruiting. At a lot of schools, it allows the coach to stack academic money on top of his athletic scholarship and build a bigger total package. A 3.3 to 3.59 counts for a partial. Under that and your son loses that leverage entirely.

Coach McCarty told me a story about a two-time all-American linebacker who was a 4.0 premed kid. He got more scholarship money than most of his teammates because the coach could stack his academic aid on top of his football money.

If your son is a borderline 3.5, that GPA is worth real dollars. If he gets to 3.6, it is even more. And it makes him a bigger recruiting target because coaches can offer him more without hurting the program's budget for other positions.

This is what I always tell families. Your son's grades and his film are both recruiting assets. Treat them that way.

Size Does Not Kill a Football Player at This Level

I brought up a 5 foot 9 left guard I talked to another coach about. Coach McCarty laughed and said his 2022 national championship team had interior linemen who were 5 foot 10 and 5 foot 11. His center was shorter than that. His quarterback on that championship team was 6 foot, ran the option in high school, and is now a backup quarterback at Nebraska.

These kids were missing one thing that kept them out of D1. Maybe height. Maybe a tenth of a second on the 40. But they were football players. They were violent. They moved the line of scrimmage. And they won a national championship.

If your son gets told he is too small or too slow or too something, that is not a death sentence for his career. It is a redirect. There is a program like Northwestern that wants football players who fit their culture. Go find the fit. Stop trying to be wanted by a school that already has its list.

Go Where You Are Wanted

Coach McCarty ended our conversation with something that should be tattooed on every parent's forehead. Go somewhere you are wanted.

Not the cool graphic the school sends. Not the big name on the helmet. Not the scholarship size. Go where the coach actually wants your son on his team. Where the relationships are real. Where the culture fits. Because your son is going to spend four years with these people. He is going to work the hardest he has ever worked with them. And the experience is supposed to be something he enjoys.

You can have a full ride to a Power Four school and hate every day of it. You can pay to play at a small school and have the best four years of your life. The difference is fit.

Join the Free Live Workshop

If your son is a high school football player and you want to help him navigate this process, I am hosting a Free Live Workshop where I walk you through the exact system we use. 94% of the athletes who follow this system earn scholarship offers.

Register for the free live workshop at gonextplay.com/free-training.