Recruiting: The Game Before the Games

Courtesy of CBS Sports

I'm not sure how many people actually follow the U of M football on and off the field. Yes, a lot of people attend the games at the Big House and cheer on the team, but the team on the field didn't just show up one day on campus and try out for the football team.  Most of them were starting to get recruited while they were still sophomores and juniors in high school.  I know that might sound a bit over the top, but these athletes are be told by men that are at least two to three times their age that they should come play football at this university or that and be pulled in every way imaginable, especially for the very top tier recruits.  I check out MGoBlog quite frequently and the amount of people that write and care about football recruiting, as well as basketball to a somewhat lesser extent just because of the team size, astounded me.  I think i should preface this by saying the whole reason I really got into following football recruiting is because a good friend and former teammate of mine committed to play football here.  I started to wonder who else would be coming in to play with him and it just took off from there.

He's the one on the far right if you were wondering.

I personally went through the football recruiting process, although not at as high a level as division 1 football. I was mostly getting looks at from D-3 and smaller D-2 schools.  I went on visits and got some phone calls, but I didn't realize what it really meant to be a highly recruited, BCS level recruit.  I found this pretty short video that helps scratch the surface of what high school athletes go through.

-courtesy of NCSAsport
When you realize how small the percentage is of high school kids that get drafted is, you can begin to see how high the level of competition is and how little room for error there is for even getting looked at by BCS schools.  This is a very high stakes game that that can decide whether someone gets a free education at a great university, or has to pay their way like most college students because of either a lack of exposure or just lack of talent.
That being said, recruiting season is in full swing with most of the big name recruits getting offers and taking visits and colleges hosting junior days to get a closer look at the athletes they are recruiting.  Michigan just had quite a successful junior day-type event.  It started with two recruits verbally committing to Michigan around 1 on the Saturday we played Ohio(State) and ended on Sunday when U of M have received verbals from 8 total recruits in a 36 hour period.  This has never happened before in the history of U of M football recruiting.  Keep in mind that these kids that committed are not even done with their junior years of high school and won't even be freshman until the fall of 2013.  To put it in perspective, Michigan didn't receive a single commitment for their class of 2012 class until the end March.  Its the end of February and Michigan has 13 out of a possible 20-22 spots filled.
If you asked almost any coach, they would tell you that recruiting is the lifeblood of a program.  Without good levels of talent, it is almost impossible for a team to do well.  Of course there are always players who are "under-the-radar", late bloomers, or deemed as "projects", meaning they have a lot of potential but are not college ready to see the field and need to be coached up before they see the field.  The coaches work with players once they're on campus and attending college is obviously a big part of success, but the product on the field had been through a process that is the real way teams win championships.  One could say that a major reason the SEC teams do as well as they do because of their ruthless recruiting tactics and the sheer numbers of top shelf talent they bring in every year.  I won't get into an argument about oversigning (its ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed), but I will say that it is slowly being gotten rid, or at least limited of by most colleges.
The games in the Big House and the players on the field *couch* Denard *cough* might get all the attention, but the process the players goes through before touching the field is the real game that is played by coaches on a daily basis.