So your son wants to play college football...

Guest Post By: Nicole Baran, blogger and creator of the Single Mom's Guide, a blog helping parents like her navigate the D1 football recruiting process. 

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Welcome to the only blog by a single mom on this topic. I only know this because while I was going through the process with my son I looked everywhere for a guide. They don't exist. So instead, I was left asking for information from coaches and "friends" who usually had their own agenda when giving me advice. With that being said, I'm here to give all the tricks and tips to the process that I learned the hard way. I will do my best to tell you everything I learned and am still learning.

My name is Nicole and my son has just finished his first full year of college. He enrolled in January of 2018 and was highly recruited out of high school with 38 D-1 (division 1) full scholarship offers to play football. It all started with his first "offer" as a sophomore; And if your son is like mine he's watched his older teammates get "offers" and talk to coaches for the last couple years and he's ready for his turn. He has watched the commitment videos on YouTube, he's seen schools chosen out of "3 hats at the table" and he's ready for his chance. (If you have free time look up "commitment videos" on YouTube. They are pretty elaborate.)

Let me first explain what an "offer" is: Usually a college coach will contact your athlete's high school coach (because they are not allowed to contact the athlete directly due to NCAA rules. We will get more in depth with this later) and extend a scholarship offer to your athlete. This is a very exciting time. However, keep your cool Mom. I need you to have your Spidey senses on full alert as the offers start to roll in.

First things first: Get yourself a Twitter account. This is how you will keep abreast on all recruiting news. Follow any or all coaches, schools and recruits that you know of. This way you will be updated on what is going on with recruiting. This is especially helpful to keep track of how many commits in each position the school already has and how many they offer. How will you know whom they offered? Trust me; Kids love to post their offers.

Keep in mind Twitter is not like Facebook or Instagram. Twitter is your new recruiting tool. Think of this as "All business". No pics of the kids or your breakfast. This is solely to tweet your athlete's Hudl link (Hudl is the site the athletes use to edit their highlights and send to coaches) keep up to date on schools and recruiting and to communicate with coaches through DM's (Direct messages. Like messenger on Facebook). You, your athlete and his coach are his only promoters. It will be up to you guys to post his highlights and send them to coaches. This is how he will get exposure. Gone are the old days of sending out VHS tapes.

Second, get familiar with the NCAA rules on contact during recruiting. You will need to know the difference between a dead period (no contact), quiet period (no face-to-face contact), official visits, unofficial visits and "bump intos". If your athlete breaks the rules, he could risk losing his NCAA eligibility.

Third, STAY CALM. This is a huge time for you and your son. Take your time, do your research and enjoy the ride. The most important thing you can do right now is get prepared for the overwhelming time and attention the recruiting process takes. You want to make an informed decision and even then, you still might not get it right. It's all perfect, you and your athlete will learn and grow through this process. Everything is going to be fine.

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Numbers Don't Lie would like to send a huge thank you to Nicole for helping others with her valuable experience and insights. Additionally we want to thank her  for being one of our guest bloggers. We encourage everyone to go and visit the Single Mom's Guide on all the platforms it is on, see links below:

https://www.instagram.com/singlemomsguidetod1football/

https://singlemomsguidetod1footballrecruiting.com/