Recruiting During the Pandemic

By Christopher Cassidy

Mark Fields, a senior at Saint John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts is having a hard time showcasing his skills to colleges because of the pandemic. 

He can’t visit the schools that he wants to because of the Covid-19 rules schools are forced to follow and the camps he would go to where coaches can watch him play were all canceled. 

“I talked to a lot of players who lost their senior season like me and they plan to post-grad somewhere and play another year of high school football before committing to a college so they can have more film to show coaches recruiting,” said Fields. 

Fields doesn’t want to play the extra season but is finding that recruiting during the pandemic is a frustrating process. 

“Recruiting classes are being finished earlier than they have been previously because no one is waiting for anything,” he said about coaches who are recruiting.   

As a result, coaches are not reaching out to some players because they have not seen them play. 

According to NCSA Sports there has been a 17 percent increase in college coaches searching for recruits.  

There has also been a 26% increase in email opens sent from recruits to college coaches during the pandemic. 

This shows how many more students were being recruited due to the pandemic and how much recruits were reaching out to coaches. 

Fields went on virtual college tours of campuses but said it is not the same as being on a campus and the cancelation of “Junior Days” also hurt. 

Junior days in the football recruiting process is when a college invites hundreds of recruits to the campus to tour the school, show players around the athletic facility, and work the player out on the field so coaches can get a better look at a recruit first hand. 

Overnight visits on campus are also a large piece of recruiting for programs, it gives the recruit a day and night to experience the campus, and spend time with the people and the players on the team.  

“If I go there, I want to know what the people are like,” he said. 

Head Coach Eli Gardner of Stonehill College said Junior Days are important to college programs.  

In Division 2, players who attend Junior Days can then showcase their skills in a prospect camp. 

When Stonehill canceled its in person Junior Day, Coach Gardner hosted a virtual Junior Day offering a virtual campus tour and this spring sent out 300 invitations for another virtual Junior Day. 

 Gardner said while Stonehill can highlight the beauty of the campus, recruits deserve to have that real experience but it is difficult to do in this pandemic.  

“We have the overnight visits where our players will host a recruit for the night and take him to dinner in the dining commons and spend the night there,” said Gardner. 

Gardner said the players on the team play a key role in recruiting because they are the guys who the recruits will be playing with.  

 Gardner said coaches now have to trust the film recruits send and the numbers that matter, like lifting numbers and a player's height and weight. 

This is a different situation for a Division 1 recruit looking to play Division 1 football in college. 

 Matt Ragan, a reclassed junior at Lawrence Academy, is a division 1 football recruit who just committed to play football at Boston College. 

Ragan also couldn’t showcase his skills to coaches over the summer because camps were canceled and schools set restrictions on recruiting.  

Ragan is the fifteenth ranked tight end recruit in the nation and losing his junior season this year because of the pandemic prevented him from sending video of games to send out to programs. 

When he sent out his sophomore year film, Division 1 programs offered Ragan scholarships right away. 

He received interest from Michigan State, Boston College, Pitt, and Duke.  Because the schools couldn’t meet him in person, they contacted him other ways, such as by phone. 

“It was me trying to get as much information about the schools as possible,” Matt said regarding the phone calls with coaches. 

Ragan did not attend any virtual tours and did not have many Zoom encounters during recruiting.  

The only school that went on Zoom was Boston College where he met with the entire coaching staff, a big part in his decision to go to Boston College.  

The hardest part for Ragan was he could not meet in person with the coaches and see the schools.  

Ragan was already familiar with BC because his brother, Sean Ragan, played four seasons with the team.  

Ragan knew coaches wanted players to commit early because of the pandemic and he did it quickly. 

 “For my position, every school takes one to two players per recruiting class,” Ragan said about recruiting.  

 He said he would have waited but the pandemic changed that. 

“I don’t think I would’ve committed this early,” Matt said. 

Josh Ligor, a sophomore at Bridgewater State University, played football his freshman year at Stonehill College before transfering. 

He had a hard time figuring out what he wanted to do, and decided that attending a different school would be best for him. 

When he decided he was transferring from Stonehill College, he was put into what is known as the “Transfer Portal,” where college football players go when they want to transfer and they are allowed to be recruited by other colleges. 

“March and April are popular months for Division 3 recruiting and when I entered the portal, it was right when the pandemic became serious,” Ligor said. 

Ligor had multiples contacts with schools as soon as he entered the portal because some were recruiting him prior to his commitment to Stonehill. 

He said there were no Zoom meetings and only phone calls with coaches and text messages. 

“All coaches would stay in contact, some more than others,” Ligor said.  

He said he was sent virtual tours of the campuses, because he was not able to visit the school itself, and he would get videos of the team practicing to help him understand the program. 

“If I was given the opportunity for in person workouts, I think I would have had more options to choose from,” he said. 

He thinks in person contact influences a recruiting class a lot because coaches will know what the player can do. 

After choosing to commit to Bridgewater State, he said his coaches stayed in close contact with him to prepare him for fall workouts. 

Ligor said he was unable to meet his new teammates due to the pandemic and when he walked into his first workout, he felt out of place a bit. 

“My first time meeting everybody was at the first fall workout,” said Ligor 

He said he is happy with where he is at now and looks forward to his future with the team.