Former college quarterback Trenton Luera says mindset kills recruiting chances. Athletes tank their odds by limiting schools to D1 only, refusing to contact coaches, or chasing status over fit. He says act in high school when you have leverage, not after.
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In recruiting, the number one killer is your mindset. And I've seen this time and time again. So you need to make sure you get your mindset right. And so today I'm going to dive into that what the right mindset to have is, as well as what are some bad mindsets that I've seen that have absolutely killed people's recruiting process. And so if you don't know who I am, I'm Trent Lohre, I'm a former college quarterback. I have run your first scholarship where we help families get their first scholarship and more. So let's dive into it. So first off, let's talk about the bad mindsets because that's the first thing that comes to mind. And the number one is getting too caught up, they're being too narrow. And this is like a very general one. You might be like, what do you mean by that? They're too narrow with the schools that they choose in. And so the most common variation of this is the D1 or bus mindset. You know, hey, we're only thinking power four schools, we're only thinking a group of five schools. Or sometimes I hear, oh, we're only thinking of schools in a two hour, four hour radius. And again, I'm not saying this is necessarily entirely bad. And so maybe me saying, hey, this is bad is a completely wrong thing to say. But the issue is you have to figure out what your goal is. If your goal is, hey, I want to play at a D1 close to home. Okay, that's fine. And that makes sense to have these goals of, okay, I want a D1 school that's four hours away from home. Cool. But the issue is the misaligned expectations with your talent level. Because I talked to many families or I've talked to families where they have these expectations, but then the talent level doesn't meet that. And so you have to have the mindset of like a little bit more versatility in how you think and how things happen. Because recruiting is so unexpected. I can never guarantee someone, hey, we're going to get you a scholarship for X school. Like, we're going to get you a scholarship to ucla, usc. I can usually guarantee people, hey, we'll get a response from them and we'll get a clear idea of where you hang with them. But very rarely am I able to say, hey, well you're definitely going to get it from scholarship from the school. Even if they tell them before they actually offer them, like, yeah, we're probably going to offer you. I'm like, hey, Anything can happen. Like, who knows, Even after they get offered, I'm like, you know, who knows, you might not be able to have that come signing day. And so this whole narrow mindset of like, we're only interested in X schools unless it like directly ties to a degree or something that you really need. I think having a narrow mindset kills your recruiting because you're just instantly cutting out this big group of schools. You're cutting down 800 plus schools to 50, 20, which is just gonna absolutely tank your recruiting. So that's the biggest one, is being too narrow minded. The number one is like, I don't know what it is, but like not wanting to brag about yourself, not wanting to put yourself out there. I don't know the best way to kind of like generalize that. But this whole idea of like reaching out to coaches is too much and that you don't really need to do it. Because I get it. I get the bragging stuff. Usually that's coming from the kids. And I get it because, because I was there, I didn't want to brag by myself. And I didn't post on Twitter a ton throughout most of my recruiting process because I was like, eh, it feels like bragging. I don't want to be one of those guys that like posts every single workout like, oh yeah, we're on that grind. But then in reality people are like looking at it like, dude, you're not really a hard worker at all. But it's something that you have to overcome. It's a belief that you have to overcome. Because sadly, if it doesn't happen on social media, then no one knows about it and it didn't happen in the real world. Like, obviously that's not true, but in the context of recruiting it is true. Because a coach can't see every single thing that you do, so you have to show it somewhere. And that's where Twitter comes in. Of course, you can do it privately too. You can just message the coaches and show them as well. And I recommend you do that as well because it's usually a better way to do things rather than publicly. But putting yourself out there is just a part of the process that you have to do. Unless you're an absolute stud that's going to get the attention that they need organically from whatever comes their way just because they're a once in a generation kind of guy or once in a, you know, top 300 guy in their class. So you need to put yourself out there and there's really no workarounds around that other than just sitting back with sitting on your hands and hoping for someone else to come their way and see you. So you have to put yourself out there from there. I mean, the biggest one I want to talk about was the first one because that's just such a bad mindset to have as far as like the D wonder bro stuff and just not lining up with those talent levels. I think the from there, I mean, the last one is probably just not really choosing schools based on what's important to them. I shouldn't say what's important to them because they do choose what's important to them, but what's actually going to help you. And this is why you see so many kids transfer, and this is why so many people are unsatisfied with their recruiting process and make the wrong decisions because they focus on, like, the external stuff. What's going to look cool, the highest division level school, the best school in terms of rankings and all that. Instead of worrying about, okay, like, what, what is gonna be? What is gonna. Where am I gonna be the most satisfied at? Where am I gonna be the happiest at? Where is gonna help me get closer to my goals? And that depends. Like, for some people, their goal is, hey, I really want to be at a D1 school and just have the D1 experience. Cool. Then those D1 schools align with that. But if your goal is to I want the best chance to play. I don't even care what's like, if your goal is to play at a school, then probably choosing the best school isn't for you. If your goal is just to get a really good education, then probably choosing that D1 school might not be necessarily the best choice. If your school is to get school paid for, then taking a PwO is not your best choice. And you have to really figure out what that is because most people don't realize what they truly wanted until they get on the campus and experience it. And then they realize too late how to transfer. And then they get and thrown into kind of a. Okay, well, I got to take what comes up at my point. And I guess a lot of people don't realize that is you lose a lot of leverage after high school. Like, you have the most leverage in high school. And then obviously if you play really well and you transfer, like, yeah, you might have some leverage at that point, but that's a very top 5% scenario. Top 10% maybe. But out of high school, you have the most leverage that you possibly could have. You have the most options at your disposal because immediately once you enroll in the school to transfer, you immediately lose some spots as far as like some high academic schools won't let you transfer in and stuff like that. So that, that immediately kind of takes some, some options away from you. But in high school you have the most leverage. And I've talked to plenty of people that just like they skip school or they skipped, they graduated and they skipped a year and like they're trying to play again and I'm like dude, like maybe you could try getting onto a lower level school but realistically like your best bet is Gojuko. Even then that's going to be hard because you just have no leverage. And same with transfers. So many guys enter the transfer portal thinking that they have all this leverage and these relationships that they can lean on. And sometimes they do, but most of the time they don't. They lost all that leverage and it's completely new situation and then they have to go and you know, either hang it up for a year or they end up hanging up overall or they have to go back down to Juco or something. And so make sure that you are making the best decision for you that will help you and you will be happy at for the next four to five years. So pretty quick one today, just want to talk about the mindset stuff just because I, I think that just kills so many people's recruiting process and hopefully listening to this, you can take that in, realize it and be like hey, I need to make sure to avoid that at all costs. Or hey, I am thinking that way right now and I need to make sure not to think that way in the future because it's hard. Like your, your thoughts are not necessarily easy to control by any means. But if you can make that small tweak, your recruiting process will just be much more enjoyable in the first place and you'll have way more success depending on what your goals are of course. And so hopefully this helps out. If you got something from this, be sure to subscribe. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.
