Most players and parents are miffed by the fact that coaches make calls and then they suddenly drop off with no invites to official visits or no offers. And then some parents are delighted that calls come from literally "left field" late in the recruiting season (in april).
College recruiters and coaches set up their recruiting boards with players listed under the above.
An A player is usually their preferred recruits with B as alternative and C as alternative if A and B are not interested. Coaches also use this to help in budgeting.
An A player on one board may be a B or C player on someone elses board. Not all highly ranked players are always A recruits. Some C players on some boards are A or B recruits on others.
As an example of how this works, let's say a coach offers two A players scholarships and they accept. That usually means he has to spend more money than expected, so now he will recruit more C players.
Some parents don't understand this strange stradegy. Some wonder why a coach would offer a scholarship to a player who may not be as talented as their player is. That's because coaches can't afford all A recruits. One parent once told me that they couldn't understand why a player they knew was offered a scholarship to Clemson. Although not a starter, that player filled the need (and very well I might add) of the coaches objective for the team. That player also, because he needed to develop, was just very happy getting an opportunity to be on the roster, where the other player might be unhappy or want more $$.
This is also why during late in the process a player gets an offer when they haven't heard from the coach in a while. Some don't like it, thinking they were not the coaches FIRST choice, but that's OK, chances are that program was not your son's first choice either. You have to sort that out and this is where "good fit" comes into play. This is not to slight or to offend anyone, it happens often. While I knew my son was an A player at Clemson, it was obvious he was not an A player at UM or some other schools he was interested in.
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