How to make the most on gameday visits

Okay, so today I want to talk about game day visits. It's one of the biggest things in college football recruiting because it's an exciting time. You get a chance to go visit a college campus and see a game in action. But also, you know, does it actually mean anything you're recruiting? So let's talk about it. And if you don't know who I am, I'm Trent Lauren. I'm a former college quarterback. I know we're in your first scholarship where we help families get their first scholarship and more. So basically what a game day visit is if you haven't gotten the chance to go on one, is you get invited to essentially usually before the game. You get some kind of introduction, probably a meal before the game, get to meet some of the coaching staff, and then you go kind of check out some of the game, maybe the pre game stuff, then you watch the game, essentially get free tickets to the game, which is always nice. But the big thing is like, does this actually help your recruiting? And if so, how does it help? And how can you actually improve your chances of getting recruited? So the first thing I actually want to talk about has nothing to do with the game day visit itself, but it's the invite itself. Because one of the things you see is so many families aren't sure if these are personal invites, if they're actually worth attending. And sometimes they're asking you to travel across the country and game day bites for the most part. If they're not official, you have to pay out of pocket for this stuff. So it can get expensive. And so it comes down to like, is it actually worth making that travel? And even if it's not a plane flight, it might be a four hour car ride on a Saturday when you know you just had a game the day before. So is that worth going to? And so the biggest thing I can say is the more personalized it is, the more likely it is that is worth attending. Because what most families run into is they see any game day invite and instantly take it as they're recruiting you hard. You need to go and make the most of the opportunity. And it's definitely not saying that you can't make the most of those opportunities, but it doesn't mean that's always worth it to go. Because a generic game day invite is going to look like an email. It's just gonna have a link in there and it's very clear that it wasn't personalized to you. More personalized game day is gonna be usually through text, maybe through xdms but the closer it is to you essentially being directly talked to, saying, hey, you have to be at this game, the more likely it is that is worth you to go to. And there's a couple of things that you can do to like, ensure that it's worth it. I mean, I always recommend that families respond back to these emails and ask, hey, are you still even recruiting my position? Ask some more clear questions and make sure that it's worth actually going to. But again, it's hard to tell at times. So the more, again, more personalized it is to you, the higher the coaches up the ladder, all that stuff, it plays into a factor. So you have to factor in all the variables at hand and make the best decision for you. Again, you have to also weigh the risk factors. If it's far away, then you have to be more skeptical and press harder to see if it's worth going to, if it's closer, if it's, you know, 30 minutes, an hour away, it's a close local school, you know, regardless, you should probably attend because it's not a big commitment to you and it's not a big, you know, as far as effort goes, it's not super high effort. So from there, once you, you know, have that invite or go into the visit, you know, what can you do to maximize the opportunity for. First things first, make sure you let the coach know that you're going to be there or any other coaches on the staff that you plan on talking to that you're going to be there. The visit, this is huge because at least they remember who you are and can keep in mind that, hey, this guy's going to be here. I want to make sure to talk to him. And then you can follow up with that at the visit by talking to them and shaking their hand. Now, at the visit, the big thing is attire. You want to make sure to dress up. It's always better to dress up than dress down. You know, avoid the pajama pants, all that stuff. Maybe avoid some Crocs and some slippers and. But for me, I generally wore like a polo khakis, usual stuff you can go super fancy with. A suit might may help you stand out, but definitely not necessary. I just recommend, you know, generally go for some more, you know, casual form or kind of look from there. At the visit, again, you're going to get to the opportunity to talk to coaches, at least on most of these visits. I would be shocked if you didn't. The biggest thing is like go up and try to talk to as many coaches as possible. The big ones you want to focus on are, you know, your position coach, your recruiting area coach, the recruiting coordinator overall, probably the head coach as well as like your coordinator on the side of the ball. You just want to talk to them, introduce yourself and you're obviously not going to get an offer there. They would. You probably know that pretty clearly beforehand that if they're recruiting you heavily, but your goal is to just get FaceTime, introduce yourself. So that way you can build off of that conversation later. Then really from there, that's really the best way they can maximize that is that conversation at hand. You want to ask good questions, be engaged in the conversation, really, you know, show them that you're a good character and a good kid. I think back to my, really my only game day advice. I went to SMU1 and I think I made the most of the opportunity. Talked about as many coaches I could, had some really awesome conversations with people and I felt like it gave me a little bit of a leg up on that opportunity. Obviously I didn't get anything, I'm not an SMU or didn't end up at smu, but felt like those conversations at least gave me a chance to potentially turn into something and felt like I made the most of it. So after that, I mean you're going to go through the game day stuff. I recommend you stay till the end because you never know what might happen after the game. You may have the opportunity to talk to coaches, players, et cetera. That could yield some more stuff as far as results wise. Again, the SMU visit, I was able to go into the locker room, talk to a couple more people, all that stuff. And you know, some people left and they didn't get the opportunity. So you just never know. And then from there, once you go away from that getting to visit, make sure to follow up with texts, messages, whatever you can to let them know you appreciate the opportunity and you look forward to talking again in the future. And then really from there, that's. That's pretty much the end of it. And of course you just follow up from there and make sure to stay top of mind. It's not like really the. The maximized chances isn't necessarily that you're going to walk away with a game day visit with an offer. They're usually an offer you beforehand anyway, but it's more of that maximization of that visit is making sure to start on the right foot forward and just impress them more with how you act and how you hold yourself. So as long as you're doing that, I feel like, you know, you're making the most of that visit and really just make sure that you continue that momentum because it's just, it's just another momentum build that you can build on later down your relationship and it helps out a ton. So hopefully this shine some light on some stuff. If you got something from this, be sure to like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.