ESPN: Pat Fitzgerald concerned about early recruiting

[BleedGopher]

per ESPN:

"We as a coaching body and the NCAA have got to get a grasp on this, in my opinion, to be able to shift the needle back to what's important," he said at Big Ten media days on Thursday.

"I'm not saying it's an epidemic, but I've talked to some of my colleagues, and it's almost like their senior year becomes a non-year," Fitzgerald said. "You've got to get them going again fundamentally, things like running through the line. All the little things they worked their butts off doing to be able to get on the radar to be a recruit, all of a sudden they forget those because of the process."

And Fitzgerald is not real happy with what the process is doing for the egos of teenage recruits.

"The glorification of 15-year-old kids is at an astronomical high," he said. "You think about some of these kids that have been jet-setted around the country at 15 and have people telling them how good they are. Then they get to college, and they're going to get their lips knocked off and they're going to fail and they're not going to know how to deal with it. We're spending more time coaching kids how to get through that and how to manage that than we ever have before.

"I was scared when I went to college. I had no idea what to expect. And now, I talk to some of my colleagues, and they're like, 'These guys think they're the best thing ever.'"

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/80292/fitzgerald-concerned-about-early-recruiting

Go Gophers!!

 

[HopherGole]

Well stated. Unfortunately that's the current culture at the division I level of football.

 

[GophersInIowa]

My favorite coach in the Big Ten outside of Kill. Well stated.

 

[Rosemountian]

Hit it on the head.
I think about a kid who wound up at South Dakota State from Eagan.
He didnt get any major offers because he had a quiet junior year.
But by the end of his senior year he was a Mr. Football nominee, averaged 8 yards a carry, was over 200 lbs and ran sub 4.6 legit 40 time. He would no doubt be starting at a number of FBS schools if scholarships were offered to kids in the fall of their senior year instead of their sophomore and junior years. Probably hundreds of these cases across the country. Which is why, in my opinion, some FCS schools have been having success against some FBS schools. In many cases they are getting the same quality kid. The only difference being that the kid going to Toledo blew up his junior year and the kid going to Montana state didnt blow up till his senior year.

 

[epgopher]

Hit it on the head.
I think about a kid who wound up at South Dakota State from Eagan.
He didnt get any major offers because he had a quiet junior year.
But by the end of his senior year he was a Mr. Football nominee, averaged 8 yards a carry, was over 200 lbs and ran sub 4.6 legit 40 time. He would no doubt be starting at a number of FBS schools if scholarships were offered to kids in the fall of their senior year instead of their sophomore and junior years. Probably hundreds of these cases across the country. Which is why, in my opinion, some FCS schools have been having success against some FBS schools. In many cases they are getting the same quality kid. The only difference being that the kid going to Toledo blew up his junior year and the kid going to Montana state didnt blow up till his senior year.

+1

 

[NateDawgUM]

There's no reason coaches should need to contact recruits until after the holidays of their junior years of high school. Watch them, gather tape, all that fun stuff, but no contact/offers until the same time-frame when non-athletes begin seriously thinking about where they want to attend college.