New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Recruiting ramifications
State colleges will feel effects if H.S. football isn’t played
The various plot twists that will likely keep Connecticut from having full-contact 11-on-11 high school football this fall have resulted in protests, frustration and a feeling of anxiety.
If things proceed on the current path, high school seniors will be denied the opportunity to build on their football memories, but the impact could go deeper.
Central Connecticut State,
New Haven, Sacred Heart, Southern Connecticut State and WestConn football rosters feature many players who thrived for CIAC programs..
“I think it affects the individual kids because I don’t know how many kids that we recruit that really blossom their senior year,” WestConn coach Joe Loth said. “They may have been a rotational kid their junior year, maybe even started their junior year but really their senior year they blossomed, they physically mature. All of sudden they become a recruitable college player and in their mind, ‘Man, I can play college football because I’m having a lot of success in high school, I’m the best player on my team.’
“What we’re worrying about as coaches is the inability to see those kids who are maybe firstyear starters as seniors or just really developed going into their senior year. We’re concerned if we can figure out who those kids are or who those kids are going to be for us.”
Not only is it more than likely that the fall football slate could be wiped out, but mass gathering restrictions due to COVID-19 kept coaches from attending prospect camps that are invalu
able for finding under-theradar recruits.
“This summer, the opportunity to go to college camps was very limited as well because of the virus and now they won’t have any senior film so from an evaluation standpoint, it’s going to make it almost impossible to evaluate anything other than what they looked like as a junior and project what they may become in the future,” University of New Haven coach Chris Pincince said.
“We’ll have to watch the Hudl film of them and then the film will only be them as a junior and even then you probably have to look at the kid is probably 2 inches taller, he’s probably 30 pounds heavier, maybe he didn’t play as a junior because they had a better player in front of them or he was playing the wrong position at that time. It’s going to make it very, very difficult for these kids to find homes or for us to evaluate them. It’s not only Connecticut; it’s New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, so it’s going to make it hard for some of these seniors to find good fits for themselves going to college.”
ON THE ROAD AGAIN?
High school football is being played in various areas across the nation, primarily in states where programs don’t typically recruit. In the quest to find the next group of talented recruits, will the programs move away from recruiting primarily in New England or the tri-state area, especially with none of the Connecticut colleges or universities playing football in the fall?
“It’s easy to say that, there are many alums who weren’t Connecticut alums when they were here, but we could never do that here,” Southern Connecticut State coach Tom Godek said. “It’s the heartbeat, the pulse. The bloodline is Connecticut kids first at Southern and then you get to branch out to the other areas of the Northeast and we would find some other guys.”
Every true freshman on WestConn’s 2019 football roster came from Connecticut, New York or New Jersey. The story is similar at New Haven, Sacred Heart and SCSU. The head coaches of all four programs said while they will keep their eyes and ears open for prospects regardless of location, they don’t plan on deviating from the recruiting blueprint they have developed.
Pincince said half of the 16 true freshmen from Connecticut are living at home and commuting to school, which is an unprecedented number since he’s been at the helm of the New Haven program.
The college coaches will have to lean even more on the high school coaches from their geographic recruiting base to help develop a list of recruitable prospects.
“The thing that we try to do to speed up the process, we even started in last week, is we sent an email to every high school coach in our recruiting footprint and said, ‘Hey, we can’t come
into the school this year, can you please send us a list of who you think we should recruit?’ ” WestConn’s Loth said. “The good news is at least all of these coaches have worked with these kids this summer and they’ve seen the kids who they project to have really good senior years. But a lot of it now is us really relying on the coaches. As much as we have in the past, we’re relying on them even more this year on their opinion because there’s a lot less film on kids because they don’t have a senior year.”
Sacred Heart’s Mark Nofri mentioned the restrictions in place that limit travel from Connecticut to states with high levels of positive COVID-19 tests as another roadblock in recruiting in different areas of the country.
7-VS.-7 NOT REALLY AN OPTION
One of the potential scenarios for some sort of football in Connecticut in the fall is 7-on-7, which is a quarterback, running backs, receivers and tight ends going up against linebackers and defensive backs. Most colleges will use some aspect of 7-on-7 during practices, especially those without pads, but utilizing lineman-less football in the evaluation of high school players is difficult.
Godek was a highly decorated offensive lineman at Southern Connecticut who got into camp with the New York Jets in 1988, so it’s not surprising to hear his take on football played without linemen.
“Seven on 7 is just for June and July,” Godek said. “A lot of 7-on-7 film shows up, there’s a lot of skill players that show up out there ... but without the linemen, in the opinion of many, it’s where a lot of players make it happen.”
Pincince concurs with Godek’s take on the recruiting impact of 7 on 7.
“It has nothing to do with anybody, including the quarterback or receiver, the defensive back or linebacker, it does very little with (determining) if they’re going to be able to play 11-on-11 football at the college level,” Pincince said. “It’s an unrealistic thing that you do because it has always been a source of practice and it builds teamwork and it is necessary in some places that you go. I live in North Haven and 7-on-7 at North Haven High School is a little hard to do with the old single wing, so I can’t imagine that we’re going to be evaluating certain kids the right way and unfortunately for those kids, 7-on-7 football is probably fun, it’ll probably give them something to do like a glorified gym class, but it certainly is not going to help them compete and be evaluated at the college level.”
PREP SCHOOL OPTION?
Many of Connecticut’s prep schools have opted to cancel football in the fall, but there are teams planning to play. That leads to the question of whether current players from CIAC schools will head to prep school for additional exposure.
In speaking with the college coaches, it doesn’t
seem as if that is a viable option.
“Those prep schools are pretty much locked into the number of people they have going to their schools,” Pincince said. “In the future, that might happen, some of these high school seniors who are not getting the opportunity that they think they deserve or what they want to get in whatever sport they’re playing, they may look for those prep schools a year from now to give them that exposure that they didn’t get. It won’t hurt the high schools, but when those kids don’t get looked at by the higherlevel programs that they think they should be given an opportunity, they’re going to look for another way to get exposure and those prep schools in the future may reap the benefits of this year kind of being upside down.”
SPRING FORWARD HAS NEW MEANING
There are so many questions surrounding Connecticut high school football, but plenty at the college level as well.
There’s been talk of pushing the football season to the spring, with Sacred Heart one of the schools still hopeful that will happen.
“Right now, there’s a motion to play seven conference games starting the first weekend in March. Chances are it might pass and that’s what we’re shooting for and that’ what we’re hoping for,” Nofri said. “Everybody’s down. The coaches are down. I’m depressed and saddened that it’s fall and on Saturdays I’ll be sitting home, not at work, not on the sidelines, not traveling or doing what we normally do in the course of a day. I look at my watch and say, I’ll be doing this right about now. It’s depressing and sad, but it is what it is, we’re all here for each other, working out together, being here for the kids, trying to make the best of it and look at the positives that we’re still in school. They didn’t send us home, we’re working out and lifting, we will get to practice this fall hopefully, hopefully we will have a season in spring and another one in September 2021.”
When the games will be played is only part of the uncertainty. The NCAA will allow players who have seasons taken from them to have an additional season of eligibility.
That leaves college programs left to ponder how many slots are available for the next recruiting cycle.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Nofri said. “We talk about it as a staff, we talk to other head coaches at other FCS schools and you just don’t know. You have to kind of bide time and wait and see what their thoughts are. Some kids I think, if they have an opportunity to play in the spring and graduate in the spring, might move on. Some might want to come back for a fifth year. Then it comes down to do we bring them back and is it feasible to bring them back? Can we afford to bring them back? There’s a lot that plays into it.”