RN Football
Jeremy Crabtree, RecruitingNation 9y

The current roster recruiting

Football Recruiting, Penn State Nittany Lions, Arizona Wildcats, Clemson Tigers, Mississippi State Bulldogs

When ESPN 300 athlete Terry Godwin arrives on Alabama's campus this weekend for an official visit, he'll spend time touring the facilities, he'll talk with Nick Saban about how he fits in with the Crimson Tide's offense, and he surely will eat so much food he'll gain three or four pounds by the time the weekend is over.

All those things are vital parts of the decision-making process for recruits such as Godwin, but there's another, often overlooked factor recruits analyze every time they step on campus for an official or unofficial visit. That factor is players already on the team.

"When I go on my visits, I want to spend as much time around the players as possible," Godwin said earlier this month at practice for the Under Armour All-America Game. "I don't want to end up at a school where I don't feel like I belong. Coaches can tell you about how great it is at their school and how they're one big family, but if you don't get that feeling for yourself, then you know it's the right place for you."

Godwin is right. College coaches know they can have the swaggest uniforms around, lockers with flat screens and PlayStations in them, 24-hour training tables with all the best grub, and a staff full of ace recruiters, but if the players already on campus are sending mixed signals about how things really are within the program, they're going to have a tough time landing prospects.

"It's probably the biggest reason that nobody really talks about, when it comes to a kid picking or not picking a school," Arizona receivers coach Tony Dews said. "When kids come on campus and interact with your current players, you want them to feel like they can fit in with these guys. 'I feel like I'm one of these guys.' I think it's huge. You try to get the recruits to spend as much time as possible with your players because they can be your best salesmen."

Penn State coach James Franklin agrees, but he also said there's both good and bad when it comes to players interacting with recruits. From his experience, Franklin said he has noticed how current players will often go out of their way to give recruits the unvarnished truth about a school.

If it's boring off campus and there's nowhere to go out, the players will tell them. If the student body really rallies behind the team, win or lose, the players will tell them. If the recruiters sell academics but push players into classes such as rocks for jocks, the players will tell them. If there are a lot of attractive girls, the players will tell them. If a coach plays nice on the recruiting trail but is a different person in the locker room, players are definitely going to tell prospects how it really is.

"If your players are having a good experience and your recruits get around those players and are comfortable, they're like-minded individuals, and they feel comfortable, it makes your job as a recruit a lot easier," Franklin said. "Recruits are asking 'Look, what is Coach Franklin really like? Is this just how he is during recruiting?' Your players can give them the truth and say 'No, this is who he is.' I think that's valuable.

"It's funny how much players on your team will go out of their way to tell recruits what it's really like at your school. That's why it's important you have a great relationship and have trust with everybody in your program -- because they can become one of your biggest recruiting tools."

Savvy coaches also understand that players hosting visitors or hanging out with recruits on unofficial visits can give them a behind-the-scenes look at how the prospect will handle the pressure of being a student-athlete in college. Does the recruit only talk about going out and partying on his visit? Does he ask the right questions about the academic workload, or does he ask about how to get tutors to do all of his work? Does he seem interested and engaged in getting to know the host or any of the other players on the team? Does he have an attitude that would make him a locker room problem instead of a leader?

Niel Stopczynski, Mississippi State's assistant recruiting coordinator, said those are all questions the Bulldogs coaching staff asks its players after they meet recruits and before the school accepts a commitment from a prospect.

"The players you have on your team, they have to play with this guy, too," Stopczynski said. "I think them having a feel for who this guy is, even if he's a very highly recruited kid, sometimes you can get feedback from them, too. They say 'Coach, this guy was great. He'll fit right in.' Or you get 'Coach, this dude, he's going to have a tough time fitting this deal with us.' That doesn't mean you either recruit or you don't recruit the kid, but at least you have an idea of how that kid fits."

Franklin said the feedback he gets from his players is a critical part of the process.

"If a player is not a good fit, and he's doing some things that really wouldn't allow him to fit in here, then we need to be aware of it," he said. "We need to know that. And in most cases, the players have taken ownership of their program and team. This is their team. So they will often report back to you. We ask them 'Is this somebody you want on your team? Do you want to be a teammate with him or not?' They often communicate that information back to you."

But to ensure recruits such as Godwin have the experience they want on their visits and coaches get the feedback they crave from their players, Clemson co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott said schools will spend months gathering as much information about prospects as possible to find their perfect match for a player host.

"It's a little bit like Match.com," Scott said. "There are a lot of different factors you take into consideration. You maybe have a recruit that really likes to talk and ask a lot of questions, and maybe you have a player that really doesn't like talking. That might not work so well. Each recruit is a little bit different, and each player on your team is a little bit different, so the better recruiter you are, the better you know that young man. You know maybe who would be the best player to host.

"That's definitely something we spend a lot of time talking about because that interaction the players have with recruits is without a doubt one of the biggest parts of the recruiting process."

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