It is the cardinal sin of the recruiting game. When an athlete waits until senior year to focus on getting recruited. The expectation that having big performances during your senior year will vault you to the top of the target list at your dream school makes a for a good story. In fact, that is where people got that idea from…. watching television and movies. But it just doesn’t match the reality. Though it isn’t unheard of for a senior to suddenly gain recruiting interest, it is very unlikely. And the reason is simple, because the college admissions process is already ongoing by that point. And the truth without any photoshop, is that the end of your junior year season is for the most part, the final entry on your recruiting resume. And knowing this should govern every decision that you make in recruiting. And here is why. 

The recruiting game is simple, it is about getting a coach to show interest in you, building a relationship with them, and eventually convincing them to offer you a spot on their team. It is then, and only then when you can actually accept an offer. Junior year is the key to all of this because it is when your athletic powers will be at their peak in high school, but still early enough for a coach to notice you before it’s too late.

Most recruits are growing and maturing throughout their high school years, and college coaches know that. Coaches scout talent early, but that’s only because they want to know which recruits are head and shoulders above their peers. Those recruits will be targeted by just about any coach with access to the internet, and a full scholarship slot available. The irony is that these recruits may not turn out to be the best in the long run, because developing early is often the reason why they got much of this attention. The recruit who is 6’4 at age 14 might very well still be 6’4 at 17, but their peers have caught up to them in more ways than one. Ranking systems are flawed in the sense where once you get on a list, it’s near impossible to fall all the way off of it. Taking up spots for all the late bloomers.

But college coaches are pretty aware that athletes take time to develop. And junior year is the best time for them to see if you can truly perform at a very high level. By that point, just about anyone who will be playing varsity sports in high school should be on the team. This promotes the assumption that the best athletes will prove themselves when the cream rises to the top “aka state championship season.” Junior year is the first real moment when all the best athletes in any recruiting class are playing on the same level, the highest level. It is also the last full season you get to play before college applications have to start getting sent in. 

If you show out during your junior year even if you are not on a coach’s radar, but prove yourself against a recruit who already is, you can take their spot on the target list. Coaches are evaluating talent all throughout high school, so any verbal offer made, prior to senior year is exactly that a “verbal offer”. It can be pulled back, especially if the recruit shows a serious decline in performance. But after junior year, coaches at all levels have to make offers, because without it, your application won’t even get reviewed in time for acceptance. And that is why senior year is not the beacon of hope that you may think. 

High school is a period of physiological development as much as it is for your skill, and that skews the results that we see in early recruiting. Much of that growth occurs in the first half of high school. But it is atypical for a high school athlete to grow an additional three inches entering their senior year. And this explains why many athletes perform pretty similarly during their junior year campaigns to their senior year, apart from maybe getting more playing time. Their playing with the same physical toolbox for 2 years in a row, perhaps the first time in their careers that has ever really occurred.

If you are looking to get recruited by a school and they don’t believe in you enough to show interest by the end of your junior year, I wouldn’t hold out hope that will change. Any coach who doesn’t believe in you by that point, isn’t really interested in you, or developing you. At the highest levels of recruiting, a late addition to the target list is often a byproduct of other recruits, whom they really wanted more committing elsewhere. If a coach tells a high school junior, that if you get more film and improve your skills they will keep an eye one you… what they meant to say was “if you were someone else we would want you”. The coaches who believe in you through your junior year are likely the ones who are more concerned with what you are going to do in the future, in their uniform, than what you have already done. And those are the coaches who will be most likely to develop you further as a college athlete.

 Let your junior year performances govern which schools you prioritize in recruiting. Most schools won’t have the resources to find every athlete who could be a good fit. And those who do, normally aren’t shopping for diamonds in the rough. They are looking for them at high end diamond retailers like ESPN Recruiting. If you have to scrap and fight just to get their attention as a senior, you will likely have to do the same when you get on campus to keep it. Recruits who are the last to be offered, are also most commonly the last to get an opportunity on the field. So my advice is that you let your junior year show you who really wants you. Because it is always best to be somewhere that you are wanted. And the transfer portal is filled with athletes who ended up in places where they were not.

KNOW THE GAME. WIN THE GAME.

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