WEARY WEEK OF RECRUITING Coaches hardly rest during the season as calls, letters to prospects continue By Billy Liucci

Following the college football process is a hobby to thousands of fans across the country. For the college football coaches, it has become a full-time job.

Everyone knows that the Aggie coaching staff hits the road during the month of May for spring evaluations and travels around the country for in-house visits during the peak recruiting months of December and January.

In addition, recent changes in the recruiting process, namely the growth in popularity of early commitments, have made June and July very hectic months as the Aggie coaches work summer camps for weeks at a time. A lot of planning, time, and travel go into such events, but things tend to get really hectic when the college football season begins.

Alan Weddell's plate is full during the season with game preparations and recruiting responsiblilities.

As all of you know, the recruiting process does not shut down, or even slow down, when September rolls around. In addition to worrying about game plans, practices, and opponents such as Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Texas, and Kansas State, the A&M coaching staff must pay constant attention to the program’s recruiting efforts.

With coaches like Bob Stoops, Mack Brown, and Nick Saban prowling the Texas landscape in search of blue-chip prospects, the Aggies have little to no margin for error and must be on top of their game, and their top high school prospects, or A&M will fall back in the never-ending race for February signatures.

Doing so is easier said than done. For the Aggies, the recruiting week begins on Sunday.

The coaching staff meets and talks about each of the individual prospects that they have spoken to during the previous week. A school is allowed to contact a prospective recruit just once a week, so this meeting is a very important one. The coaching staff must be on the same page, and each assistant receives a phone folder with a list of players he will contact during the upcoming week.

The calls are broken up either by the coaches’ recruiting areas or by position. For example, Kevin

Sumlin may call the Aggies’ top wide receiver prospects, or he may call any of the prospects from the Dallas Metroplex.

After long days of practice and meetings, the Aggie coaches dedicate Sunday-Thursday nights to calling their recruiting targets.

While college coaches are allowed just one phone call to a prospect per week, the amount of written correspondence is unlimited. So it should come as no surprise that the Aggies devote time every day to putting the pen to the paper. That is usually somehow squeezed in between meetings, interviews, and practice.

Speaking of meetings, the Aggie coaching staff begins each work day with a 15-30 minute meeting in which they discus the current state of A&M’s recruiting efforts.

All of those things go on during a normal game week, but the weekends are even more eventful.

"Things don’t get any easier on the weekends," says Tim Cassidy, A&M’s director of football operations. "Our coaches, those that are going to be on the road, leave town immediately after Thursday’s practice."

On Friday, the traveling coaches visit several high schools and attend as many games as possible on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, the staff meets in order to discus all of the recruits who are scheduled to be at Kyle Field as guests or "unofficial visitors."

Kevin Sumlin can call on his positions players, as well as prospects in his recruiting area of Dallas.

As soon as the game is over, win or lose, the visiting recruits have a chance to meet face-to-face with their prospective position coaches and other coaches on the A&M staff.

So has the trend toward early commitments affected this routine as much or more than it has other aspects of the process?

One thing that has changed is that the Aggie coaches don’t spend a whole lot of time during the fall evaluating prospects, at least not senior prospects. Thanks to the new emphasis on summer camps and the premium that is being placed on early commits, the vast majority of A&M offers have already been extended.

While the Aggies are watching some games to see whether or not a handful of prospects will end up earning official offers, the coaches, believe it or not, are also spending a good bit of their time trying to get the jump on evaluating the state’s top junior prospects.

The toughest part of fall recruiting, according to A&M inside linebackers coach Alan Weddell, is time management.

"I, like all coaches, have to coordinate and manage time during each week when I am writing to the recruits in my area, writing to all of the inside linebacker recruits, making phone calls, and traveling to watch games week after week. All this while coaching the football team.

"Another aspect that makes things very difficult during this time of year is trying to get a feel for how serious an interest the particular recruits have in your school. Each particular coach ends up talking to prospects less than once a week, and it’s not easy to gauge how they truly feel about your program."

No, nothing comes easy in the college football recruiting world these days, but staying power is the biggest key towards landing a top class.

Indeed, it’s become a year-round process. Now that the college football season is upon us, the recruiting race seems to take a back seat. Superficially, that may be the case, but make no mistake, the stretch run has already begun.

What happens during the recruiting race from now until November might not make headlines, but many classes will be made or broken before bowl games and official visits become all the rage.