ATTENTION College Football Recruits: Who Do You Trust?

When that head coach comes into your home and breaks bread with your family, he is there to try to convince you to come to the school he coaches at.  They will wow you and your mother with their heartfelt desire to help you achieve your goal of making the pros.  They will promise you and your mother:

that their offensive or defensive system will allow you to shine

you will play as a freshman

you are the next coming of - fill in the name of a great player at your position

if you want, they will promise you three and done

they will protect you.

The may also:

Not spend much time discussing you education unless you force them

have well rehearsed standard lines (sometimes very negative) for each of your other school choices

pull your scholarship offer if someone else better comes along.

With the events of the past few weeks, it should be very important for you to understand just how likely it will be for that coach to witness your commencement as he does your Letter of Intent Day.

With that in mind, I thought it would be useful to understand the changes that have happened in the college football coaching ranks since the end of the 2004 regular season.  That is just 5 seasons ago.  With a red shirt year, those high school seniors being recruited have just completed their college careers.

Of the 120 major colleges you have to choose from, more than 80 have had at least one change during that five year period.   If the same hold true for the next five years, better than 2/3 of the coaches that sat next to you Mother, won’t keep the promises they make.

My advise, be wary.  The fact of the matter is that the coach eating your mother's cookies won't be the one that sees you graduate.  Unfortunately, some of them won't even care.

By conference

ACC:     9/12   Virginia Tech, Maryland and Wake Forest

Big 10:  8/11    Penn State, Ohio State and Iowa

B12:     9/12    Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas

BE:       6/8     Rutgers and Connecticut

CUSA: 10/12    Texas/El Paso and Central Florida

MAC:  12/13     Kent State and Akron

MWC:    8/9     Texas Christian

Pac10:   7/10   Oregon State Arizona and Cal

Sun Belt: 5/9    Florida Atlantic, Troy, Arkansas State, U of Louisiana/Lafayette

SEC:    10/12    Vanderbilt and Georgia

WAC:  7/9    Fresno State, Nevada