I appreciate our Sports Information Director Steve Cox working with me in the start of my coach’s blog on the Bridgewater College web site. I want to use it as means to communicate with the families, friends and fans of Bridgewater College football. I think we try to run an open program with good access, and my hope is that this can be a forum for both inside information and a means to answer the questions or address the concerns of our many fans. I will be starting my 15th season with the Eagles and we have shared an exciting ride. I hope to use this as a means to stay connected to the groups and individuals who have been, or will be sharing the BC football experience with me and the Eagles. We are undefeated in 2009 and our goal is to make the effort that beat a 9-2 Catholic team soundly in week 11 the norm in the season to come.
Recruiting: At the Division III level the recruiting calendar for football is really a December to April issue. Unlike BCS Division I recruiting, which is moving in the direction of college basketball where identifying and offering underclassmen is now the new norm, Division III recruiting, for the most part, is a senior level issue. Although their signing day has passed, at our level, February is a full fury time where recruiting gets our primary emphasis. We will bring kids to campus every Saturday and on President’s Day of this month.
Securing admissions by the first of March is a goal of ours, as that will allow the Financial Aid office to work with the admitted students and develop financial aid offers throughout the month of March. Although Division III athletes cannot sign “A Letter of Intent” like is done at the football scholarship level, they designate their college choice by putting in an admissions deposit to a school. This is considered an intent to enroll by NCAA standards, and it turns a prospect into a “Recruit”. As a Division III coach I could legally talk about one of these students and release information to the press if we wanted. We can treat these students like the Division I schools treat their recruits after the signing date.
Most of our recruits do not make attendance decisions until after financial aid is set. Although there are a lot of factors involved in recruiting, that is still the dominant variable. I hope this clears up some of the differences in Division I and Division III recruiting. I will note that about 50 percent of our big recruiting battles are between going to Bridgewater where you can have Saturday impact or walking on at Division I or I-AA and trying to be the 1 in 15 guy who makes it at the scholarship level. (That’s about the rate of return).
In BC specific recruiting we are going to be broad based. We are still a young team that needs to develop depth and young athletes. We did this a year ago and those young players now have a chance to play for us in 2009. In next year’s senior class there are 20 kids that will need to be replaced.
I have gotten a lot of questions on the status of Aaron Reed who had signed with JMU a year ago out of Broadway H.S. Aaron has enrolled at Bridgewater but informed me he did not plan to play football at this time. Offensive line is a top recruiting project so this was disappointing. I wished him well and let him know Bridgewater is a great place to be without football too, but let him know the door would be open if he changed his mind.
Coach Clark
