NCAA lays out changes to football recruitment

With changes to NCAA rules regarding college football recruitment, coaches are now able to use social media, specifically Twitter, to their benefit by retweeting recruits.

This new policy allows coaches to further expose their football program as well as emphasize the high school athletes they are recruiting. On the other hand, players, who are also allowed to retweet, use this to their advantage by showcasing which schools are on the hunt for them.

Twitter and the ability to retweet is a completely different tool coaches and players are using now. The advantage of exposing talent via social media was not used a few years ago.

The intensity of recruiting has increased over the years, and the competition is high between these high school athletes, and between the coaches for these athletes.

The state of Florida, specifically, has been a popular place to effectively recruit high school football athletes. College recruiters around the nation travel to Florida, scouting out players who they believe will fit was a good fit.

Lehigh is one of the many universities that make Florida one of their top priorities when it comes to recruiting. Lehigh football coach Andy Coen believes Florida has always been a strong recruiting state and continues to build in talent.

“When I left Lehigh, I went to (University of Pennsylvania), and I started recruiting a lot of kids when I was recruiting down there for Penn,” Coen said. “And then when I became the head coach, I really put an emphasis on Florida, because there are so many kids who are academically squared away . . . particularly, certain schools in Florida.”

After Coen’s experience in recruiting throughout the nation for Penn, he was adamant about the emphasis of recruiting in Florida when he returned to Lehigh to coach.

“Recruiting Florida to us, is like recruiting New Jersey to us, just because we’ve had the success there.” Coen said.

Senior captain Colton Caslow, who is from Altamonte Springs, Florida, agrees with Coen that Florida is a competitive state for football.

“It’s definitely competitive down there,” Caslow said. “There are so many players who are so talented, and that’s what made it so challenging, at least for me.”

Caslow said he’s sincerely grateful for both coming to Lehigh and being chosen as a leader on the team.

While looking at places around Caslow’s hometown of Altamonte Springs, Coen acknowledges the many other places in Florida where he finds other talented players.

“We’ve been able to have a couple of pockets that have been really positive for us, like Orlando has been an outstanding area for us,” Coen said.

In addition to Orlando, the southeast coast has been another area where Coen has successfully found recruits.

Senior linebacker Evan Harvey, who grew up in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, said the state has definitely been more upscale in the past few years in comparison to his early high school years.

“It’s huge for recruiting,” Harvey said. “It always has been, but I see coaches from all over coming to Florida, looking and scouting the different kids.”