Third parties at center of discussion on college recruiting

Coaches acknowledge outside influences hold increasing sway over high school players

SAN ANTONIO — Third parties in the recruiting process continue to draw the ire of Texas high school football coaches.

It was one of the prevalent topics during the NCAA Division I Coaches panel at this year’s Texas High School Coaches Association convention. The panel is one of the few instances that bring the state’s high school football coaches and Division I college coaches together in the same room.

The topic of third parties in recruiting revolves around a question that has many aspects: Is the high school football coach losing value during the recruiting process?

Recruiting today involves not only the high school coach and parents, but also many other parties or outside influences that some believe have their own interests ahead of the players.

College coaches agreed the old-fashioned way is the ideal way — solely recruiting through the high school coach. But it’s not an ideal world.

UTSA coach Frank Wilson says it can be a delicate subject because parents sometimes allow players to work with third parties — whether it be a trainer, outside coach, recruiting service or guardian. Other times, that third party is the most important person for a player from a household that lacks stability.

“When they do it right with integrity and with ethics and morals, that’s not a problem,” Wilson said of the third parties. “The problem becomes when that person is not doing it genuinely and they have an agenda, and when that happens, that’s when we have an issue.”

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher weighed in on the subject as well, saying that ideally he would rather recruit through the high school only but understands others might be involved in a player’s process.

Fisher said nothing trumps what the high school coach says and he reaffirms with high school coaches who is involved with a player.

Times have changed, though.

There used to be only two ways to contact a recruit — by calling his coach or his parents.

“Now people are contacting these kids and getting involved with these kids a thousand times, and unfortunately, I have to deal with those guys because sometimes they become part of the decision-making process,” Fisher said.

College coaches say social media has been at the forefront of a lot of change with recruiting.

Its impact on the coaching profession was also a topic during the panel. Recruits are more accessible to many more programs. Texas coach Tom Herman said social media opened the state in a lot of ways to programs from afar and “de-regionalized” recruiting.

That was seen in 2017 when eight of the top 10 recruits signed with out-of-state schools, according to 247Sports. That seems to be an outlier, though, with Texas and Texas A&M wrestling back the pipeline in the 2018 and 2019 classes.

Much of the social media topic had to do with how coaches handle what players tweet. Baylor coach Matt Rhule made sure to mark the distinction between character issues and maturity when it comes to foul tweets from players.

There is another side of it with social media playing a role in the relationship between athletes and today’s political climate. Some college and high school players are passionate about speaking out against social injustice — the forefront of which is the NFL’s national anthem policy and police brutality.

“I think what we have to do is we have to see where that’s going to fit in our own programs, and certainly I don’t want to take away my student-athletes’ voice,” Rice coach Mike Bloomgren said. “Matter of fact, I want to accentuate it. I want them to have the ability to sell their life. I’m not going to tell our guys to stay off social media. But what I want it to be is a journal, a way to advertise everything that’s going great in their life.

“So as you talk about those particular issues that are certainly at the forefront of our national society, I think you’ve got to decide what your stance is going to be. Again at Rice, we’re going to have a voice. We’ve got smart, educated guys. We’re going to let them talk about hotbutton issues for sure. That would not be something that would deter me away.”