How to Get Recruited: What College Coaches Actually Look for in Film, Phone Calls & Camps

I sat down with a Head College Football Coach who has built one of the winningest programs at his school and coached over 40 student athletes to All-Conference honors. He did not sugarcoat a single thing. If your son is a 2026, 2027, or 2028 player and you are waiting for offers that have not come, this conversation is going to change how you operate starting this week.

The Alpha Player: What Gets a Coach's Attention on Film

This coach uses the word alpha. Not in a buzzword way. He means the kid who competes on every snap, who flashes on film before you even finish the first cut-up, and who handles the recruiting process the same way he handles a fourth-quarter drive. That kid is easy to recruit. He already understands what is being asked of him.

The kid on the other end of that spectrum is the one who sends a Twitter DM asking about offers in the first two sentences. That coach told me he cannot even blame those kids because they just do not know. But not knowing costs them. Coaches move on fast. The film has to stand out among peers, and the behavior in the process has to match what a coach expects to see in his locker room.

The difference between player A and player B is rarely a dramatic athletic gap. It is all the details. Does he watch film? Can he talk ball? Does he communicate like someone who will show up to a Tuesday morning lift when no one is watching? Those things are visible before a kid ever sets foot on campus.

The Recruiting Funnel: How Coaches Actually Process Your Son's Info

Most families think submitting a Hudl link is the process. It is not even the start. This coach walked me through exactly how his program filters 13,000 players down to 42 signed in a single cycle. Area coach first. Then position coach. Then coordinator. Then the head coach gets final say. Every offer has his stamp on it.

Your son has to know who to contact at each school. Not every program runs the same way. Some recruit by area. Some recruit by position. Some have a recruiting coordinator. Some do not. The first question your son should ask any program is simple: who is my point of contact here and what does your process look like? That one question alone signals to a coach that your son understands how this works.

Grades matter more than most families realize inside that funnel. This coach told me straight: if he has two players at the same athletic level and one has a 3.8 GPA and one has a 2.4, he can land the 3.8 kid with less scholarship money. That freed-up money goes to another position. Academics are not just about eligibility. They are a recruiting leverage tool that most families leave sitting on the table.

What Actually Happens on a Recruiting Phone Call

Getting a coach on the phone is not the finish line. It is the opening. What your son does on that call determines whether there is a second one. This coach told me the kids who connect with him do their homework first. They know the school is private. They know it is in New England. They reference something specific about the program or the coach's background. That is not flattery. That is showing a coach you took ten minutes to prepare.

Then they ask real questions. Not surface-level cut-and-paste stuff. They ask how the program handles freshman development. They ask what the hardest adjustment is for first-year players. And here is the move most kids never make: they ask the coach about himself. His family. His background. The coaches who have been in this business long enough know that the kid who asks about your dog's name and remembers it on the next call is going to remember the play call on third and seven in November.

This coach also asks every recruit one specific question during the process: tell me something about yourself that will help me coach you better. The answers he gets from that question tell him more than any film session. If your son cannot answer that question, he is not ready for the phone call. Work on it.

The Scholarship Stacking Model: How the Money Actually Works

I hear this from parents constantly. They think Division 2 means a full ride or nothing. That is not how it works. This coach broke down the three-bucket model he uses with every family. Bucket one is academic merit. Bucket two is financial aid. Bucket three is football scholarship money. All three stack on top of each other.

The families who understand this walk into recruiting with a real number in mind. The families who do not file the FAFSA early, who do not check the net price calculator, who assume the football number is the whole story, end up shocked in April. This coach told me he cannot give a family a real out-of-pocket number until the FAFSA is in. A family that files early gets to have that real conversation first. A family that waits gets it last.

Your son's football scholarship number alone is probably not going to be the biggest line on that sheet. The academic merit and financial aid numbers often are. That means a 3.8 GPA is not just a nice-to-have. It is money. Real money. Treat it that way.

Camp Strategy: Where Families Waste Money and Miss Opportunities

This coach has been to mega camps in Florida and left without evaluating half the players on his list. Field four and field one might as well be different zip codes. A kid can pay to attend, get two throws in, and never have a single real conversation with a college coach. The camp organizers get paid. Your son gets nothing.

The camp strategy I always recommend lines up exactly with what this coach told me. Start with your level. Get your game film evaluated by someone with real college football experience. Find out honestly whether your son grades as a D1, D2, D3, or FCS player right now. Then reach out to schools at that level, get them to watch the film, and let them invite your son to their camp. That invitation means they already know who he is. They have watched the film. Your son walks in with a connection already built. That is a completely different experience than paying a registration fee to run around a field with 400 strangers.

This coach also made a point I want every parent to hear. Do not stack camps back to back. Your son will be sore and slow, and a bad 40 time at camp number two can undo everything camp number one built. Space them out. Mix the levels. Go to a D3 camp. If he performs, go to a D2 camp. Work up. The marketplace will tell you where your son's stock is trading right now.

The Timeline Mistake That Ends Recruiting Before It Starts

This coach told me his program rolls four camps in New England in the first fifteen days of May. Their virtual visits are already done. By June, the real evaluation work is finished. He is not opening a new recruiting cycle in August. He is managing applications and transcripts and FAFSA deadlines. If your son is not on a coach's radar before summer, he is competing for leftovers in the fall.

FBS programs are starting official visits in seven or eight weeks from now. Division 2 programs at this coach's level have already had two virtual visits this spring. The families who think they can wait until senior season to start this process are making the most expensive mistake in recruiting. Not expensive in dollars. Expensive in options.

Start now. File the FAFSA now. Get the film evaluated now. Reach out to area coaches now. The families who do the work in the spring are the ones getting calls in the fall. The ones who wait until August are getting ghosted by October.

Join the Free Live Workshop

If this conversation changed how you are thinking about your son's recruiting process, I want to give you the next step. I run a free live workshop where I walk football families through exactly how to build a recruiting system that puts your son in front of college coaches at the right level, the right way, before the window closes.

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