ECC football coaches take to social media to promote players to colleges of all levels
ECC Football Recruits is the brainchild of NFA’s Bakoulis and Burris
College coaches are unable to visit high schools or showcases to see recruits, so Jason Bakoulis and Stephen Burris have brought them to Zoom.
Bakoulis, the Norwich Free Academy head football coach, and Burris, the Wildcats' offensive coordinator, have put together ECC Football Recruits, a do it yourself project in which conference coaches get together via conference call and promote their players to college coaches.
The first online showcase was held Friday night for 2021 graduates. There will be a second meeting for 2022 graduates on Wednesday night. The Twitter feed for the showcase is @ECCFBRecruits.
“There's a lot of stuff going on between the Zoom meetings, between all the social media connections, (where) college coaches are constantly posting stuff and allow you, as high school coaches, to get the inside scoop into their world and vice-versa,” Bakoulis said. “We (Burris and I) said, ‘hey, let's try it and let's see what happens. It went really well.
“We had ECC coaches present their kids, and we had 18, 19 (college) coaches in the meeting.”
The idea for a video showcase came from a few different things. One was Burris opening Bakoulis' eyes last fall as to how much college coaches were using Twitter to connect with potential recruits.
Bakoulis was also recently chosen as one of four northeast coaches to take part in a national online showcase.
“It gave me a little taste of this idea,” Bakoulis said. “It was a five-minute presentation on your kids. I told Steve afterwards that I felt like an auctioneer. You're trying to say all the information you can, and then all the sudden your time is up,
but it was great because there were schools I'd never heard of.
“The next day, Steve and I were talking about it and that's when we started brainstorming and kicking around ideas.”
Bakoulis had been planning to hold a “pro day” style showcase this month where ECC players could go through drills before college coaches. That plan was obviously scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bakoulis and Burris reached out to college programs about ECC Football Recruits. Most of the schools were Division III, but programs like American Interenational (Division II) Southern Connecticut (Div. II), Marist (FCS) and Rhode Island (FCS) also took part.
“We had contacted over 25 coaches who were able to get the information on the prospects, their GPAs, their height/weights, all the important stuff that they're looking for,” Bakoulis said. “The college coaches were extremely positive about it.”
Several ECC coaches joined Bakoulis for in Friday's showcase.
“(It) was a chance for the high school coaches to really talk about their kids and share things that you can't put in a number or on a piece of paper,” Bakoulis said. “The stuff about a kid being coachable, positive kids in the community, all the intangible characteristics that really are what colleges are looking for.”
New London head coach Johnny Burns was among the ECC coaches who took part in Friday's showcase.
“I've already received feedback from one school that wanted to be in touch this coming week,” Burns said. “Hopefully that (interest) will build. I certainly had an opportunity to promote some really good players that schools, if they don't start jumping on them now, are definitely going to miss out.”
Burns found some catharsis within the showcase.
“In these times, where there's so much uncertainty on how to accomplish (offseason) things . ... that (showcase) was a real breath of fresh air,” Burns said. “It was like we were really accomplishing something football-wise.”
ECC coaches were allotted 10 minutes to do a presentation on their players, Bakoulis said, but weren't held to that time.
“Depending on where a coach was in his presentation, we obviously could extend it,” Bakoulis said. “To us, this is our conference, and it's about promoting the kids. If you had to go 12, 13 minutes, go ahead. But the guys who presented were extremely efficient and did a great job promoting their kids.” n.griffen@theday.com