College soccer recruiting for top-25 Division I programs should start in 7th or 9th grade with club team play, game footage, and coach emails. Players targeting lower divisions can wait until sophomore year. The competitive benchmark is set by nationally recognized players.
Should you start the recruiting process as a freshman? Let's talk to a family that wants to go to UNC and Clemson to see what they think. Now remember, this person is already flirting with the national team and they want to play for a top 5 program. So if you don't want to play for a top program, we've learned and read, um, it's, it's the sooner you start, the better it is. Yeah, that's pretty much how it runs, you know what I mean? You don't want to be late to the game.
Yeah, so I went to UM and most of the student athletes, the recruitment process was very different back then, right, from now. And everything that I'm hearing from, you know, friends of mine that have kids in different sports— football, basketball, baseball— recruitment, the earlier the better. Everyone's telling Melissa, you got to get on the ball with Kaylee. Like, she has talent. Um, you know, try to get her like seen earlier. So she's already played for the national team for a—
if you're not on the national team, which means you won't get as much exposure as her, you probably should start earlier. But let's say you don't want to play for a top, top program, then maybe you could start later. But if you want to be competing with a person like this athlete, then this is who you're competing against. If you want to play for a small D3 program You don't need to start your freshman year. You can start your sophomore year. But when you say start, are you already on a good club team? Are you already getting minutes? Are you already talking to schools? Like, what does start mean for you? So start to me means start the process. So you need a video, which means you gotta play for a good club team. So you should be starting 7th grade. But having said that, you do want to, I understand, email coaches is what most of you mean by start. Should we email coaches? That assumes you already have a video, that's good. And that assumes you're already on a club team, that's good. So the short answer is, if you want to play for a top 25 school, you have to start 8th, 9th grade. That's just— there's nothing, no way around it. She's playing for the national team, so she will have a real chance of making this happen. You guys, I don't know exactly who I'm talking to, but it's going to be— you're competing with her, and she's getting started her 7th, 8th, 9th grade year. If you want more help playing college soccer, comment the word "call" and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
