One of the biggest recent complaints and misunderstood aspects of the current overcrowded recruiting process by recruits and their parents is why a college coach ‘ghosts’ or does not respond to a recruit after speaking or emailing/communicating with them recently. Hopefully this information will help all recruits understand this particular difficult part of the recruiting process.
The key to understanding why it happens is to examine the college coach’s side of the issue.
As easy as it is for a recruit and their family to get their hopes up and assume an offer or genuine interest (being included on a recruiting board, etc.) is happening because that recruit has recently spoken to a college staff, all recruits need to understand a few things from the college coach side.
While those calls/texts/emails from a college coach are the most important, exciting ‘news’ for the recruit and their family, most of the time, the same thing goes out to multiple other recruits that coaching staff is interested in as well. This is part of a college coaching staff’s job requirement on a daily or weekly basis.
Simply put, a college coaching staff would not be doing their job very well if they were not talking to a number of players at the same position during each recruiting class. The sooner a recruit understands this, the less stress and frustration they will feel if they do not hear from that staff again right away.
This does NOT necessarily mean that the college coach doesn’t have genuine interest in you. It simply means they are still undecided and carefully working through the multiple players they are still considering. Remember that all Power 4 Conference Division I programs have hundreds (or thousands) of recruits that email their program on a daily/weekly basis. So if you are fortunate enough to receive contact from them, and they say that they will ‘call or see you soon’, but then it does ‘dark’ for a while, that does NOT mean they suddenly lost interest.
The other main point is something recruits and their families never consider or understand: college coaches also have a difficult ‘annual puzzle’ they need to solve for each recruiting class. This includes a specific recruiting budget, certain positional needs each year, with some positional needs being more vital than others.
Because of this, a college coaching staff will ALWAYS keep information on recruits ‘close to the chest’. Why? Because they can’t give up ‘leverage’ to all other recruits, or it could destroy their ‘recruiting puzzle’ in terms of scholarship amounts to individual recruits, which could in turn also effect the amount of recruits they can even bring on in that recruiting class. It is NOT being dishonest or holding information back. It’s just part of the process, and for the betterment of their ENTIRE recruiting class each year and success of their overall program.
The last thing to remember, the fact a college coach tells a recruit they will ‘talk to them’ or ‘see them play again soon’, or even ask to ‘set up a day next week to talk’, that staff also has a million other things they need to accomplish that day and in the days or weeks to follow.
Some examples include: coaches being 100% focused on the spring transfer portal, prepping for upcoming showcases, finalizing their 2025 recruiting class, holding their team’s Spring friendlies, or conducting one-on-one meetings with current players.
Because of this, as genuine as that coach might have been in wanting to set up that call or Zoom or text the following week, things change on a daily basis and priorities for that staff might (and often do) shift as well.
In short, a college coach always needs to balance daily priorities while keeping the interest of multiple recruits for each position. That is just the reality, and the sooner you and your family understands this and sets the proper expectations, the easier your recruiting process will be.
