We did a lot of this research ourselves. We went to games as paying spectators, not recruits, to see what that looked like, including going to away games for some teams. We developed a great network of people who knew programs that we could call and the question wasn't is this coach a good guy or will he start my son — the question was, can son learn from this coach? Can he compete at this level? What are the negatives we should look out for? After he committed, I spent hours on the phone with other parents, finding out what we should be prepared for.
Son went to college, graduated, and while I don't think he loved every aspect of his choice, I think he was well prepared for what he was going to like, and what he was going to struggle with, and he had tools to handle that.