Urban Meyer’s take on 7 * 7's and camps

[green_beans]

Urban: I don't care what you do at a camp. I care what your HS coach says
As high school players hits camps across the country this month, Urban Meyer had a message for campers about high school football.

Two weeks ago, Nick Saban railed that football was the only sport left where the high school coach still matters and he wanted to keep it that way in the face of satellite camps. Meyer’s message to campers: It’s fine to do camps and get exposure, but what matters most is what you do in high school and what your coach says about you.

“Why don’t you bust your ass for your high school team? Why don’t you become captain?” Meyer said in a video posted by Bucknuts 247. “I’m involved in all this recruiting. ‘Do I have to go to this camp?’ No. I’ve got a better idea. Go become your high school coach’s best player, so when our staff goes to the high school, guess what the high school coach tells us? The same thing I said (to the NFL) about Zeke Elliott, about Bosa, Eli Apple, Taylor Decker, Darron Lee, Vonn Bell, Mike Thomas, Braxton Miller: ‘Take them. They’re the real deal. They’re teachers’ players. You can count on them.’

“For some reason, this recruiting thing is blowing up. ‘I have to go to this 7-on-7, do this, do this.’ I’ve got a better idea. Go become a great high school football player on your team. When (we) walk in that high school, guess what that high school coach says? ‘Take him.’ You know what we do at Ohio State when he says that? We usually take him. I don’t care what you do at those other camps. I want to hear your high school coach say, ‘Take him.’ If I have relationship with that high school coach like I do with these NFL coaches, guess what happens? We take him.

“Don’t worry about (all the camps). That’s all fun stuff, that’s great. But that’s not why Ohio State recruits you. I can speak for the majority of my friends that coach football. That means nothing. What means something is the recommendation of the high school football coach. Go become a captain. If you’re a captain of your high school team and you’re talented enough, you’ve got a great chance of being here. If you’re very talented and you’re not a captain, I’m going to find out why, because something’s not right.”

Camps are opportunities for coaches to get a direct look at a player. Satellite camps or not, every coach values the on-campus camp.

But Meyer had the same message for parents who ask about the exponential increase in camps.

“I have parents ask all the time, ‘Should I send him to that camp?’ Sure, if you have 80 bucks to blow, go ahead,” Meyer said. “Here’s where you start: Go make your high school coach so proud of you that he’s going to tell the college coach, ‘Take him.’ How cool is that? It’s real simple. Don’t complicate things.

“Our college players ask all the time, ‘I want to play in the NFL some day.’ Great. Become a great player. Become a selfless player. Incredible discipline doing stuff right all the time. And when it gets tough, you be the guy we can count on. See what happens then. Then we get to go to Chicago or New York, and in the first round, the New York Jets select Darron Lee, and you see the mom crying, and he goes up there with Roger Goodell as a first-round draft pick because he did what we asked him to do

 

[SPEED&JUMP DR.]

I was also reading that OSU, under Meyer, has the highest per cent of recruits that play TWO sports in high school than any other major BCS school. In fact, its encouraged. So if you play football and basketball and were thinking of quitting hoops in your senior year to get ready for OSU, he says don't quit, enjoy your senior year with your friends on basketball.

 

[6daystosaturday]

Whenever I see stories like this I find it to be completely disingenuous. Urban talks a real smooth game but the fact is he is done with his 2021 class and has pretty much knows his 2022 class, or what he is targeting. So this means he wants rising sophomores to be applicable to this advice. Urban is part of the problem. Camps and 7v7's seem to me to be a reaction to the every increasing earliness of recruiting. Kids are being offered by Big 10 institutions before every playing a meaningful varsity snap as a result of these opportunities and Urban is right there offering. The cold reality is that this article is not meant for athletes who can play at Ohio State. This is meant for the D2 and D3 kid who will fall down the recruiting ladder and these intangible, valuable attributes become important to those coaches who can't afford to travel and spend time at these camps and touch football tournaments. I would be far more impressed if the coach of a PSAC school gave this advice, not someone who says one thing and does another.