maintain recruiting edge amid pandemic

[aubiefifty 16,822]

Auburn trying to maintain recruiting edge amid pandemic

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

6-7 minutes

This was supposed to be the busy season for Auburn’s coaching staff.

Spring football was set to be in full swing, and so too was recruiting. As Gus Malzahn learned a year ago, it seemed like the Tigers hosted official visitors every weekend during the spring — during the NCAA’s quiet period, when coaches cannot conduct off-campus recruiting but prospective student-athletes can take visits to campus and have face-to-face interactions with coaches there. Malzahn and his staff were prepared for the same again this year—it’s why he gave his assistants some extended time off after February’s National Signing Day signaled the end of the 2020 recruiting cycle — that is, until March 13.

That’s when the NCAA, amid rising concerns about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, instituted a mandatory dead period for recruiting. In other words, schools had to immediately suspend all on- and off-campus in-person recruiting until at least April 15. Not only was spring football canceled, but Auburn’s efforts to build on the 2021 and 2022 recruiting classes — led by linebackers coach Travis Williams, who recently added the title of recruiting coordinator — had to be scaled back.

“We have great leadership,” Malzahn said when asked how the mandatory dead period would impact recruiting. “Our coordinators, coach Travis Williams—our recruiting coordinator—they’re doing a great job of making sure we don’t get behind working from home in the communication that they have. Right now, we’ve got the ability to communicate with recruits, and I’m sure other staffs are doing that throughout the country, because most of the kids aren’t in school now anyway.”

Malzahn pointed to technology being the key to adjusting on the fly when it comes to recruiting during this uncertain time. Coaches can still communicate with recruits through text messages and phone calls, as well as video-messaging like FaceTime and Skype. Even though they can’t evaluate players up close and in person, they still have the ability, while working remotely from home, to break down film from players’ sophomore and junior seasons on Hudl — though Williams noted last summer that those highlight packages are a good starting point but can often be misleading. Auburn’s coaches, for at least the last few years, have relied on practice footage of recruits as a secondary resource, as well as video they take themselves during camps and off-campus visits. They don’t have the ability to do that during the current dead period, so they’ll need to rely on other resources to find an edge.

It makes evaluating players and building relationships a bit more difficult, but it hasn’t stopped Auburn from extending scholarship offers—including recent ones to four-star in-state linebacker Ian Jackson and four-star athlete Sage Ryan (the No. 3 player in the 2021 class), among others.

On Tuesday, Auburn unveiled one step it’s taking to be innovative on the recruiting front during this unplanned dead period when the program’s official Twitter account posted the first installment of a new video series called “T-Will’s Takeover.”

The premise appears to be simple: Prospective recruits can’t come to Auburn for visits during the dead period, so Auburn is taking its campus to the recruits — at least virtually.

In the 2-plus minute video the Tigers posted Tuesday, Williams takes recruits on a virtual tour of some of the program’s facilities. It begins with a brief shot of the players’ lounge, as well as the locker room in the athletics complex and the equipment room before Williams flaunts some of the officially licensed gear—shirts, polos, shorts, sweats and shoes—that Auburn’s student-athletes are provided once they arrive on campus. From there, Williams shows off a pair of billiards tables available to student-athletes, as well as the movie room and video game room in the lower level of the athletics complex.

After that, Williams takes viewers through a hallway featuring helmets of every NFL team and into the Tigers’ weight room — better known as The Factory — where strength and conditioning coach Ryan Russell trains players and gets their bodies ready for the season. The tour then continues into the indoor practice facility, with Williams highlighting all the activities the team uses the building for while also detailing the décor on each wall: Auburn’s All-Americans, its Iron Bowl victories, SEC championships and “family get-togethers” — otherwise known as the instances in which the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium was stormed by fans after each of the Tigers’ last three Iron Bowl wins against rival Alabama.

“We have a lot to sell here at Auburn,” Williams said in August. “And that's what we put out there. Man, it’s a great university, won a lot of football games, and the folks that's recruiting against us, you know — I just say this: Auburn’s made it to two national championships in the last 10 years.”

More is sure to come from “T-Will’s Takeover” and Williams, who in a short time has built a name for himself as an ace recruiter, as Auburn looks to navigate this unprecedented time and build toward the future with its 2021 class, which is currently ranked 21st nationally and has three players already committed: five-star defensive tackle Lee Hunter, four-star running back Armoni Goodwin and three-star safety Phillip O’Brien Jr.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.