Trenton Luera explains three high-school categories relevant to college football recruiting—"blue bloods" (major talent hubs), "middle of the pack" (typical local programs), and "small schools" (very small enrollment)—and lists pros and cons for each. He advises: only join blue-blood programs if you are certain you'll play; at middle-tier schools, dominate your level and proactively create exposure (social media, camps, emails); at small schools, transfer if possible or dominate and aggressively seek exposure. The video closes with a call-to-action offering recruiting help.
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So there are three different types of high schools and I'm going to go through pros and cons of each one if you're thinking about transferring potentially, as well as how to handle each of these high schools depending on where you're at. So that way you can make the most of it and actually get recruited from these schools. And so the three ways that I break it up is number one, you have blue bloods. These are big time programs that college coaches often go to because they usually have top tier talent. So I post the logos there. I imagine you recognize them. Things like IMG Academy over Florida, modern day over California. You can name off St. John, Costco as well, and a couple of Texas ones as well. So these are schools that you and I know, college coaches know. They're often stopping by. Usually you're going to see, you know, 100 plus come by over the spring to visit guys, talk to guys, all this. The second one is what I call middle of the pack. This is in between these blue bloods, these top tier schools and then these really small schools. And this is usually just everybody else. I posted a picture of my stadium because that's the high school I went to. And I would call it a middle of the pack school. It wasn't a big area like SoCal nor Cal. You know, it was pretty well known, probably the top school, one of the top schools in the top conference in that section of central California. But it wasn't a blue blood. Coaches weren't going, okay, who's the new kid from Clovis North? They were more focused on those blue bloods. And so it's a little different situation there. And so most people, probably 80 to 90% of high schoolers are ending up in this middle of the package. Small school is small schools. I have this picture of kind of a football field and a cornfield. I'm talking, you know, you're having less than, you know, 500 kids to your school, maybe, maybe even less than that. We're talking about like extremely small schools where you're probably not having many kids go out in general. And so that's kind of the way I look at bluebuds producing consistent Division 1 talent year after year. If you're a starter, you're expected to go Division 1, middle of the pack. You know, hey, maybe you're producing a few here and there. Maybe you have one or two that go division one year by year, maybe you have none, but like you maybe have like somewhere in that range of like 1 to maybe 10 that get out and get signed to school. And then small school is you maybe get one to two, go out year after year, maybe, if that's, um. And so let's go into what the pros and cons of each one are and then what my recommendations would be based on your situation. So the blue bloods, the pro is college coaches come by often, as I mentioned, they're, they're basically pipelines to college football programs. At the end of the day, these coaches know that the kids there are highly talented. The coaches often are connected. And so this just leads to a lot of natural exposure. But the con is there's a lot of top tier talent. You know, everybody knows that these are the top schools and they want to play for them. And so you're less likely to play. And so I'll get into recommendation later, but that is a big piece of it, is that you shouldn't necessarily go there just because there's college coaches coming by the middle of the pack, you're more likely to play, it's probably closer to home, you're not going to have to transfer out, et cetera. The biggest thing is you're not getting consistent exposure. And so just because you play for the school, just because you're starting, just because you're putting up decent stats does not automatically guarantee you that you're going to get a scholarship or definitely not a Division 1 scholarship. And then at the small schools, your pros are, yeah, you have a very high likelihood of playing. There's probably less talented out there, so it's going to lead you to more playing time. The con is you're getting little to no natural exposure. You know, coaches aren't stopping by to see who the new small school stud is. And so that leads to a lot of issues because you can absolutely dominate. But if coaches don't know about it, then it doesn't matter at the end of the day. And so this is my recommendations based on each level. So at the blue Bloods, you should only go here if you're certain you're, you're going to play. And you can do that a lot of different ways. But I just recommend that, you know, really you're going to know if you're that kind of guy, you're going to figure it out whether someone's telling you this or they try to recruit you to that high school. But you really shouldn't plan on going to Modern Day or IMG unless you're 100% certain that it's going to make sense for you. You're going to play, you're going to get film because otherwise you can get to this trap where you don't play at all. And then you're even in a worse situation than you would be if you're at a different school. And so the middle of pack schools then is if you're here, then I would recommend making the most of it. Again, you can transfer to more of a blue blood, better program, but a lot of people will be at, you know, what I define as a middle of the pack school, you know, pretty good school, put out kids at least somewhat decently and then they try to go to a school that has put out maybe know 5% better than what their school has and like they're in the same conference or maybe a slightly better conference. And that just difference doesn't, doesn't usually make a whole bunch of sense. Sometimes it make a difference, sometimes it doesn't. It's really hit or miss. And so really at the end of the day you just need to make sure that number one, you dominate that level. Like that's the biggest thing. Because what your talent, like what your film shows is going to be the biggest indicator. But also you have to make sure to have your own exposure. Like I said, it's not going to, you're not going to have a consistent enough exposure to where like you're getting 50 plus coaches come by your school and that they know your name and all this stuff. So you have to make your name known your own way. And so you can do this on X, you can do this on email camps, et cetera. But you need to do something to get some more traction. You can't just wait around, expect coaches to find you because you're not at one of these blue bloods where that does happen. Like I'll be honest at IMG and Martin, like I've worked with one kid from IMG in a unique situation, but most of the time those kind of guys, I'm like, look, you, you already have offers, you don't need to work with me because they, they generally do. They get that traction so easily. And so if you're not at one of those schools, then it doesn't usually come that simple. At the smaller schools, ideally you transfer out. Just being honest. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to stay at a small school, especially if you're already dominating the competition. Like go play for a better program, get better film at that school. You're going to just get more natural exposure. It's going to help out a lot more with the process and then you just apply the middle of the pack recommendation of like again, continue to dominate and continue to increase exposure. That's going to help out even more. But if you stay at the small school, then you just have to dominate a lot. I'm talking, I think, I believe Derrick Henry was a, was a small school guy and ultimately he had to dominate. I remember seeing his, his numbers and they were ridiculous. And you have to get a lot of exposure on top of because you could dominate and put up video game numbers and you still have to get coaches to know about the end of the day because they're not going to be reading the newspaper clippings. And so those are the three different types of schools. Some of the recommendations that I recommend with that if you're at again, I don't generally recommend if you're a blue blood kind of guy to work with me, but if you're a middle of the pack, if you're a small school guy and you're looking for more help with recruiting, getting in touch with coaches, building relationships, figuring out how to turn some of that interest that you get into actual offers, that's all stuff that we help with and more. And so if that's something that interested in you, you can click the link below, book a call with our team, they'll kind of walk you through what we do, how we may be able to help understand your situation a little bit more. Worst case scenario, we just give you a game plan of what to execute on. You know, try and do it yourself. But if it works out, we'll go ahead and work together. We'll customize a full game plan for you guys you dialed into our systems and start getting you the interest and offers that you actually deserve. So hopefully I'll talk to you soon. Hope you enjoyed this and I'll see you soon. Peace.
