About High School Football Scouting

College football is a very competitive game. While head coaches are paid millions of dollars to lead programs, come up with game plans and inspire their team, not even the best coaches can win consistently unless they have a high quality group of players to work with consistently. In order to get the best talent to their schools, they must work in combination with high-school scouting services that give rankings of players at each position. Scouts Inc., Scouts.com and Prep Football Report provide accurate and detailed rankings of high-school players on a national basis. College coaches use these rankings as the basis for their recruiting, but they also must decide if a particular player is a good match for their team.

Function

In order to continually restock their teams with excellent players, college football coaches are dependent on scouting services and independent scouts to provide them with information about the next recruiting class. College football players come and go every single season due to graduation, injury, transfer and other issues, so recruiting is an ongoing process. Coaches spend so much of their time practicing, teaching and motivating their players that they don't have much time in the middle of the season to evaluate the talent level of the incoming class of players. Scouting services give coaches a guide to use when they decide which players to offer scholarships to every year. The scouts time, measure and evaluate players and assign them a grade on a 0-to-6 scale. While no player ever gets a straight 6, those coming closest to that level are considered the most desirable in any program.

Identification

While there is much more to a player's overall ability than size, strength and speed, high-school scouting services provide the height, weight and time in the 40-yard dash for every player they evaluate. Those factors are very important when recruiting. College football coaches do not want players who are smaller and slower than their opponents. One or two players may be smaller than average, but those individuals usually make up for that deficiency with speed and talent. Once scouts have identified the most desirable prospects based on speed, strength, height and weight, these players are carefully observed in game competition. A scout will write down exactly what he sees from the player in live competition and let the coach reading his report know if the player has toughness, heart, talent and competitiveness. It is best that the scout sees the player more than once so that initial impressions can be confirmed. A coach will then look at tape of the player while reading the scouting report to see if he can observe these same characteristics.

Time Frame

The scouting process usually goes on for more than one full season. Scouting services start evaluating players as sophomores but make their key judgments during their junior seasons. Thorough evaluations of a player's strengths and weaknesses are done during that season and the they will revisit those evaluations early in the senior year. College coaches lock up most of their recruits after their senior season. The scouting process usually lasts anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

Geography

While great individual high-school football players can be found at any school in the nation, they tend to come from football hotbeds. Many of the top receivers and running backs come from Florida high schools. Pennsylvania and Ohio high schools are known for producing great linemen and linebackers. The skill level found in Texas is very high and many scouts believe that is where the best high-school football is played. While these evaluations may seem like generalities, there is some logic to these evaluations. Football is quite popular in these states and many of the best coaches gravitate to the power high schools there. Great coaches tend to develop great players.

Benefits

Using a reputable scouting service is an essential tool for college football coaches who want to bring in talent. College football coaches simply don't have the time to do all the legwork needed when evaluating high school football players. They need a road map of who are the most worthy high-school players. The scouting services provide this information. The college coaches have to check out thoroughly anyone they want to bring in and become a player but the scouting service lists allow them to eliminate the majority of players who simply are not good enough to bring in. The scouting services also report major character issues and questions that may have come to the surface. This includes any off-the-field problems a player may have. Since a scouting service has to do a thorough job, merely regurgitating what may have come out to the public in an incident is not enough. The scouting service has to have done enough background work to determine if an incident is isolated or whether it is part of a pattern of selfish or anti-social behavior.