How To Solve The Single Biggest Problem In Recruiting Specialists

Coaches assess 3 things: admissibility, ability and personality. Don't get caught up in anything else.

Hey, Brendan Cahill 👋 here

Happy Saturday morning to 500+ smart, motivated, and good looking subscribers

Here is one short tip on how to get recruited.

Today’s article takes about 2 minutes to read.

Enjoy

---

I’ve been helping HS kickers navigate the whacky recruiting process for the better part of a decade now.

From starting to help a few kickers years ago play smaller DIII football to now, helping kickers play up to Power 5 FBS programs like Duke, Boston College, Vanderbilt, and the Ivies, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to solve the single biggest problem in kicking recruiting: people just don't know how it works.

I break it down into three digestible chunks:

• Ability

• Admissibility

• Personality

Ability

If you want to be in the conversation to kick at an FBS level you will need to be able to kick off 75 yards, kick a 60-yard field goal off the ground, and punt near a 5-second hang time to punt.

If you have access to one, a radar gun for measuring ball speed off of your foot can make this more objective. Spending time with Trackman’s kicking analytics guy Simon Mathiesen, I’ve started to see kickers of different college levels separate themselves in terms of simple ball speed off of the foot:

• FBS 70 - 75 mph off the foot

• FCS 65 - 70 mph off the foot

• D2/D3 60 - 65 mph off the foot

It really is as simple as determining how much force you generate into the ball and we all know Force = Mass X Acceleration.

Your technique only maximizes the force you already possess but does not increase it, while lifting weights will increase the amount of force your technique can harness.

If you don’t like lifting weights it is going to be hard to kick at a high collegiate level, if at all.

Admissibility

Specialists who can get into a college mostly on their own have an edge over ones that cannot.

The word is out, kicking is a bougie position where most coaches believe kickers need to have better grades and not need a scholarship to play for at least the first few years.

Coaching staffs only get so many “slots” they can essentially “fast pass” a player with subpar grades through admissions and it is a much harder sell to a head coach when it’s a kicker versus a potential program-changing WR or QB.

I’ve never heard of a coach saying they were upset their kicker’s grades were too good.

If you are looking to kick in the Ivies or NESCAC this is even more so the case: any kicker that can get through admissions usually ends up on the team because there are only so many kickers with 1500 SATs lying around.

Personality

While you do want to go to summer camps or go on visits to perform well, coaches really are interested in what type of person you are. Remember, they are stuck with you for four years as well.

When a coach leans into you to start talking about their program, lean in the back and stop kicking: make eye contact, ask them questions, and be interested in them.

To be found interesting, simply be interested.

Camps and visits are a lot more about the schmoozing than the kicking than most people think.

---

That’s all for this weekend. 1 short recruiting tip.

If you find these tips don’t help make recruiting faster, easier or simpler, please consider unsubscribing.

I won’t mind and there are no hard feelings.

Conversely, if you’re enjoying this newsletter, a referral is the best compliment you could pay me and I’d love for you to share this is one person who you think would benefit from it.

See you next weekend!

Brendan