In this interview, the speakers discuss the challenges high‑school football players face when deciding where to play college football. They argue that modern recruiting has become overly influenced by social media, recruiting experts, and monetized signing‑day events, which can drown out a player’s own intuition. The main speaker shares his personal experience of choosing to walk on at a Division I program, trusting his gut and the counsel of close family members rather than external hype. He cites Hall‑of‑Fame examples such as John Randle and Roberto Garza to illustrate that walk‑ons can reach the NFL through hard work and the right mindset. The conversation also critiques the fleeting support of fans on Twitter, the profit‑driven nature of recruiting pages, and emphasizes that a player’s mindset, consistency, and personal support network are more decisive than star ratings or external opinions.
Chapters
I think generation takes 5 years. It's supposed to be 10, but I think it's 5 years now because of the internet. But, you know, like, I don't know, you're Generation XYZ.
What are you technically? I think I'm Generation Z. I was born in '95. Okay, so I'm one of the Tide Pod generations.
Okay. See, I don't even know what that means now. Well, anyways, so when I came— when I was making a decision to play college football, I just trusted my instinct. I trusted my intuition. I think instinct has been taken out of the game. It's been coached out of the game in a lot of instances, but it's also getting coached out of or removed from this, your decision-making in regards to where you want to go. I was going to walk on because I wanted to. I was going to go to the NFL because that's what I wanted to. That was in my heart. I consulted with a couple people real close to me that understood my why. They understood my work ethic, like my parents and my grandfathers, and I consulted with them. Then I just trusted my gut and I walked on to wherever would allow me to walk on in order to make my goals come to fruition. I wasn't scared about, "Oh, well, they're going to be a scout team." Well, I've been scout team. I've been scout team for 3 years in high school, almost 4, and I'm fine with that. Now you go on internet. The internet and the interwebs and Twitters and stuff, and you go, there'll be people telling you why you shouldn't walk on.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many recruiting pages now, you know, there's so many recruiting experts who are really just trying to make a quick buck off of these, you know, 17, 18-year-old skills.
Like, this, this, let's be honest, this like signing day and commitments has become so monetized. Now there's two days where there's camera crews out there for kids to sign. Like, okay, There's no instinct involved now because everyone's telling you what to do. Everyone potentially has an angle, whether it's good or bad.
Every fan of a school program is gonna have a Twitter account and they're going to be messaging these high schoolers telling them, "Hey, you know, come to our school. We love our players." But then they're the same ones who are tweeting at you after you miss the touchdown catch and are like, "You know what? You should transfer." all this hate. So it's, you know, they love you when you have something to offer, and but once you mess up, man, they will turn on you so quick.
Yeah, I mean, so what I'm telling a kid is like, if you're hell-bent on going D1 and they've only offered you walk-ons, do you trust yourself that you could make the team? Do you trust yourself you could get off of the scout team and become a starter and get a scholarship and maybe the sky's the limit? Because It's been done before. You're not— you don't have to be a maverick. It's been done plenty of times. Like, you know, that's what I used to say when I was like, I'm going to be a D2 guy goes to the NFL. It's already been done. John Randle did it and he's in the Hall of Fame, you know. So Roberto Garza is playing 15 years. So I didn't have to like reinvent the wheel. I just had to go through the process. But I would just tell them, like, if it aligns with your goals and you talk to the people like close to you, they really know you. Not the recruiter you just met, not the coach that you just talked to for 5 minutes that's called you 10 times or 5 times, you've had 5 5-minute conversations.
Not all the gear you're getting.
Yeah, they don't know you. The people really close to you with your interests best in hand, and trust your instinct, trust your gut. Let's bring the instinct back into this. Like, let's just trust ourselves. Twitter is not an expert, it's just a platform. It's not an expert, it doesn't know. And don't let people set these rules for you. Oh, a walk-on is this. Well, to me, a walk-on is a Hall of Famer because those are the stories I choose to align myself with. So that, that's, that's what I see.
Yeah. And all these, you know, all these Hall of Famers you talk about, they come from such different backgrounds. It's not the stars that determines your success. It's the mindset. It's the process that you talked about. You know, it doesn't matter if you're the 5-star or the walk-on, the one who has the better mindset, the one who is more consistent, the one who does all the things that aren't easy to do, that's the one that's gonna be more successful at the end of the day.
