Becoming a Badger: Targeting recruits
January 30, 2009 | Football
With Signing Day right around the corner (Feb. 4) UWBadgers.com decided to try and give fans an inside look at the recruiting process, from the time a player pops up the radar, through his recruitment (evaluations, home visits, visits to campus) right up to Signing Day. Today we examine how Wisconsin first learns about a potential recruit, what the initial contact consists of and how all the information on all the players is organized.
Getting on the list
From talking to a number of people involved in the recruiting process, from coaches to players to office personnel, one thing is clear: Recruiting is a year-round process. Signing Day is usually the culmination of at least two years of tracking a potential recruit and, in most cases, longer than that. And the process can start in a number of ways.
UW's assistant coaches each have various regions they are responsible for recruiting, usually an area they have some ties to. Tight ends coach Joe Rudolph, for example, is a native of Belle Vernon, Pa., and was a member of the Ohio State staff from 2004-06, so his main recruiting areas are Pennsylvania and Ohio. Through his experiences and his time recruiting, he has built up a relationship with high school coaches in that area and they will contact him with recommendations on potential recruits. It is the same way with the other coaches.
Another way a kid's name can pop up on the radar is just in the process of recruiting. Let's say Bob Bostad is watching film of a senior in Wisconsin that we have been heavily involved in. On the other team, a junior defensive lineman catches his eye. That junior can be added to the list.
'We try to get as many teams on tape as possible,' assistant coach Randall McCray, UW's recruiting coordinator, said. 'Therefore when you start your junior recruiting for the next season, you've already got their junior tape.'
There are also a number of recruiting services that schools contract with and the services provide lists of potential Division I recruits.
The final way is by someone contacting the football office with information on a player that may be interested in UW or someone they think we should take a look at.
'Every e-mail that is sent to me, gets forwarded to the recruiting coach for that area, and if it's say New Mexico or somewhere like that, the position coach would get that e-mail,' McCray said. 'Then we would respond to that e-mail with a quick response, `Thank you for your interest in Wisconsin. We've received your e-mail. It has been forwarded to' so-and-so.''
Maintaining the list
Once a player is 'on the radar' his basic information (height, weight, position, high school, year in school, etc.) is entered into a database that catalogs all the players we are looking at and their information. Sharon Betlach, one of the office assistants in the football office, is responsible for the maintenance of that database.
'When a recruit's information is given to us, either by our coaches here, high school coaches, or by a recruiting service, or somebody calling in, we request a tape or DVD from the high school,' Betlach said. 'The DVDs come in, whether it's one we requested or whether it's one sending it in on their own, and we put them into our database and catalog them. Every DVD is assigned a number and the recruit's name, as well as the high school and the recruit's basic information, height, weight, position.'
Usually there are three years worth of players in the database. For instance, right now there are kids for the class of 2009 that will sign in a couple days, kids for the class of 2010 that we are already recruiting and will focus on more heavily once signing day is past, and kids for the class of 2011 who just finished their sophomore seasons but are being looked at as potential recruits.
'Right now we probably have 10,000 names in the database covering those three years (current seniors, juniors and sophomores),' Betlach said. 'There are even some freshmen in there. Once this class graduates and we're done and those names move out, then you're constantly inputting names. So in a given class, we would probably have 2,500 names, at least, of juniors that are on the radar. '
An important thing to note is that the list is constantly in motion. Players who were not on the list as sophomores can be added as juniors, or players who were highly regarded as juniors, may slip a little as seniors. Also, players may verbally commit to us or to other schools, impacting their status on the list.
'A player is never dropped from the database,' Betlach said. 'Maybe from the mailing list but we never drop a recruit because that's the whole process of recruiting. There can be multiple evaluations.'
Making contact
Once a player has been identified as someone UW would like to recruit and we have all their information, the recruiting process begins. Starting on Sept. 1 of a prospect's junior season, we can send them mailings directly to their home.
'That first mailing after Sept. 1 just kind of welcomes them to the program, so those first few mailings probably go out to 800 to 1,000 people,' Betlach said.
'The first letter that I ever received, I think was from North Carolina, ' freshman Jon Budmayr, a member of UW's signing class of 2009 who enrolled in school at the beginning of the spring semester. 'It was just one of those generic ones that gets sent out to everyone on their mailing list but I still thought it was pretty neat to get in the mail. After that, there were several more from other schools that came along that same line.'
While those first few mailings go to a large number of kids, the coaching staff has come up with a number of recruits they are looking for at each position in a given recruiting class.
'As a staff, we come up with a number of how many kids we want to recruit and sign at a position each year,' Coach McCray said. 'Out of the seniors that you lose, obviously you try to replace them. Then any attrition that you might have during the course of the year at that position, or if you're already lacking at that position for some reason, you add another number to that position. We have a goal number at each position that we want to sign each year.'
That doesn't mean that number is set in stone.
'For instance, say you need two linebackers and you get two commits,' McCray said. 'Then, out of the blue, the No. 1 linebacker in the country says he wants to come to Wisconsin. You always say you'll never turn down a great player. '
The key is to try to stay in contact with the recruits you are interested in. There are a number of ways to do that.
'We try to do one or two mailings a week,' Betlach said. 'In addition, the coaches are mailing out things as well, writing personal notes and everything. We also do e-mails. As the process goes along and the lists get smaller we begin to do specialized mailings.'
Who are we after'
While each coach has specialized recruiting areas and obviously specialized positions, the decision on who to recruit and who not to is not left up to just one person.
'The first person that watches the video is the recruiting coach,' McCray said. 'If the recruiting coach thinks he's a good enough player, it goes to the position coach. The position coach watches it, writes down his evaluation, and then it goes to the offensive or defensive staffs. The staff watches the video, especially the coordinators. If it passes that, then it goes to the desk of the head coach, with all the evaluations, plus their GPA and an ACT or SAT score, if possible. At that point, Coach Bielema watches the video and if he feels like he's good enough to offer, then he signs off on it.'
Before that decision to offer is made, however, the coaches must feel comfortable with the player both on the field and off. Is he good enough to play in the Big Ten' Can he make our team better' Will he be a good fit academically' Will he be a good teammate'
All those questions and many more are the types of the things the coaches are looking at. sportid=111&storyid=16661"> --> In the next installment, we'll take a look at how those questions are answered.
