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Notre Dame coach Lewis Cook remembers what recruiting college football players used to be like.
During his first of two stints as an assistant coach for the UL Ragin' Cajuns, Cook's unique abilities to develop relationships with young athletes was crucial to the result of the search.
"I can remember going down to the Golden Triangle (Beaumont, Texas area) for a week,'' Cook said. "I'd watch a kid practice track and then go watch a kid who was still in the playoffs. I'd be able to see how they react to a coach fussing at them or to a bad call. You really got to know those kids.''
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Kevin Foote
kfoote@theadvertiser.com
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These days, however, NCAA recruiting restrictions make relationships tough to build. Dead periods where no games can be viewed personally and the number of contacts with athletes limit access to the prospective athletes.
It's also made recruiting more of a roll of the dice than ever, even in this age of information overload with countless recruiting Web sites.
For instance, of the 20 Acadiana area high school kids who signed with Division I or I-AA programs in the 2002 class, eight either didn't even finish their careers at the school or never arrived at all.
Only half of them were full-time starters at least one of their four seasons.
"Now they limit how many times you can see a kid,'' Cook said. "When we were in the Dome this year, some of the college coaches couldn't watch certain teams play because they had already seen them.''
Carencro High defensive coordinator Tony Courville has dealt with college coaches for years as the Bears' recruiting liaison.
"The first thing that coaches ask for now is the kid's (academic) transcript,'' Courville said. "It wasn't always that way. If they're not eligible or have a good chance to be eligible, they do go any farther than that.
"There are just so many restrictions now. They can't even go watch the kids play until after Nov. 1. They use D___ and even e-mail now to evaluate kids. It's very tough now. It's no wonder why colleges miss on so many kids.''
Courville predicts that the next big NCAA restriction will be limiting the contact through text messages on cell phones.
"That's the new thing,'' he said. "Now they're asking for kids cell phones and nicknames for e-mail addresses.''
Courville said the relationships with the coaches have also faltered.
"Coaches used to visit all the high school coaches in the area,'' he said. "With all the restrictions now, they normally just visit the ones who have the top prospects, unless they're a first-year coach.''
Because of those restrictions, the new trend is to get prospects to commit early based on their junior season. So many college coaches never see a signee play as a senior.
"There's a lot less recruiting going on,'' Cook said. "Now they're getting guys to commit early based on those one-day camps. Really good players who don't get to start until their senior year because of the program they're in or kids that don't blossum until their senior year just get lost in the shuffle.''
Westminster Christian coach Tommy Badon, for one, has completely been turned off by the new process.
"I don't understand recruiting at all,'' Badon said. "They used to watch the kids play. Now they don't. It's all on video. I've got kids who are young who I know can play college football somewhere and they're just not getting a chance.''
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