For those that don’t know, Spring evaluation period started last Monday. What exactly is it? Last Monday was the first time college coaches could travel on the road to high schools and junior colleges to gather film, talk to coaches about players, gather transcripts, etc. The one thing they are not allowed to do is visit with the prospect.
Many schools are currently in Arizona. Here is a list of a few: Memphis, South Alabama, Lamar, Arizona State, Arizona, Texas Tech, Eastern Michigan, South Dakota State, Washington State and BYU. There are probably twice that many that I have not seen and probably ten times that number will be through our Valley schools once the evaluation period is over.
Some visit high schools only, some visit both high schools and junior colleges and some visit junior colleges only. I have talked about this before, the junior college football in Arizona is very good and will give as many as sixty kids a year to play division-one football that wouldn’t have had that chance out of high school. Why would a school recruit only at a junior college when the Valley is loaded with players in 2012? Simple, money. It is cheaper to recruit local prospects. Cheaper to fly them in on official visits. Cheaper to pay for their in-state tuition for their scholarship. And it is easier to keep that local player at their school for retention reasons. So some schools like Eastern Michigan, Texas Tech and Lamar that have come through only looking for JC players are looking for kids that can contribute right away to their program.
What can we expect post-Spring evaluation period? There will be an offer boom!! Right now, 28 players in Arizona have division-one offers. That number will double in the next month. Some players I fully expect to see a rapid rise in their recruitment include, OG Charlie Renfree at Brophy, OT Travis Fister at Salpointe, safety Nick Farina and DE Lorenzo Melvin at Desert Vista, OT Hayden Johnson from Centennial, QB Tyler Rogers from Liberty, DE Drew Burgesser at Williams Field and RB Kani Benoit from Thunderbird.
