Why googling "how to get recruited" doesn't work and what to do instead

Alright, so today I'm talking about why cookie cutter advice doesn't work and why you can't just use general advice and get the absolute max on your recruiting. So if you don't know who I am, I'm Trey Lohr. I'm a former college quarterback. I went and played at the JUCO level, I played at the NA level and now I run your first scholarship where we help families get their first scholarship and more. So basically what this is going to be is going to be unedited. If you're watching this on podcast form, then that's kind of how it is. If it's video, again, it's unedited video. So take what you can from this gonna be a lot of rambling. Just take the best stuff and apply it to your stuff. Um, so essentially the biggest thing that I'm thinking through is like why, why googling how to get recruited doesn't work? Cause I think that's like, that's how everybody gets started. They're like, okay, cool, like if you're a recruit, this is probably how you got started. If you're a parent, this is probably how you're trying to help your son is like, you're like, okay, well let's just start with the basics. I'll google how to get recruited, how to get a college football scholarship. But then you run into this very generic advice. I'm not saying it's absolutely horrible. It's gonna probably like if you actually do it, you're gonna be above average. Because just realistically, most people just don't even take the actions necessary to get a scholarship. Like putting together a decent Twitter profile, putting together a decent highlight video and they have like decent stuff. But I'm talking about like if you're watching these videos, like your goal is not just like, I want the bare minimum scholarship. I want like, I imagine if you're watching these videos you want to like really crush the recruiting process, get a full ride scholarship, maximize the division level that you're going to make sure that's the best school for like, for you or your son. And so you're, you're on the same lines that I was going through my recruit process. Like, I did not. Like, I wasn't just like, oh, I hope I get a scholarship. I was like, okay, I want to secure a full ride. I want to make sure my family doesn't have to pay for school. I want to make sure that I don't have any debt going out of college. I want to make sure that the opportunity to compete, that I have these goals that I wanted to hit. And I imagine you're probably built the same way if you're watching this. So Googling is not going to work because it's just super generic advice. Everybody's getting the same advice. And realistically, like, if you're getting the same advice, you're applying the same advice, you're just gonna blend in with the crowd. Like, at this point, like, let me just put out there, what's common knowledge? Cause I think a lot of people think, like, I'm on Twitter, I'm ahead of the game. Like, all you need is a Twitter profile. The I say the market is what I'm popping up in the mind. But just like everybody is so much more sophisticated as far as like knowledge and recruiting now than they were. I'll say five years ago. I'll say five years ago is good gap because that's when I first started. Five years ago, Twitter profile wasn't like super common knowledge. If you got on Twitter, you started to get the idea that, like, hey, this is the place to be. But it definitely wasn't like everybody had a Twitter profile. Now everybody knows to get a Twitter profile, pretty much everybody knows I need to make a highlight video that it can't be, you know, four minute long, five minute long highlight video. Everybody knows they need to go to camps. Like, there's a lot of things that like, everybody knows kind of what to do generally. So, like, if everybody knows what to do, then to become, to maximize recruiting, you can't just do that's like, this is bare minimum stuff now, making a Twitter profile, bare minimum. But again, they're a decent Twitter profile. Bare minimum. Sending out a decent message is bare minimum. Like, just sending a message isn't gonna get done. Sending a few messages isn't gonna get it done. Like, you need to be like, you need to be ramping it up big time. Like, that's what I think a lot of people don't understand is like, they're, they're comparing recruiting from five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and going like, oh, this is so overkill. You don't need to do this. You know, that's not what got me recruited. And it's like, the thing is it's just changed so significantly. Like, the stuff we do for our recruits is just drastically more in depth, more well thought out, simpler for the coaches. And it just, it takes a recruiting so much more to the next level and we just crush every other recruit that like, are in similar Situations, Again, I'll reference. I mean, I have a recruit that, that using basically my playbook, what got me recruited 22 Division 1 offers. He just committed to Memphis today. Awesome stuff. But that's a great example of, like, his dad is like, the. Just the stuff. Like, the principles are just so much more in depth. Like, they had worked with NCSA in the past, and he just didn't really feel like it was worth it. Cause it's just. It's just much more general tools, like, they have some stuff on there. I'm not saying it's bad. I know a lot of people, like, just say bad stuff about ncsa and I'm. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not their biggest fan. But it's like, that stuff isn't gonna, like, get you to this point where, like, unless your talent's just absolutely insane, if you run 44 again, this stuff doesn't matter. But, like, that general stuff isn't gonna take you to that next level of recruiting. Like, if you're. If you're an FCS guy and you do this general stuff, maybe you land FCs, but realistically, you're probably gonna end up D2 nowadays with the transfer portal and everything like that. Like, guys fall lower because it's so much more competitive. Not only you're competing against all these high school guys that are well equipped with decent recruiting knowledge. Like, decent recruiting knowledge back when I was around was just like, make sure to go to camps, make sure to email coaches. Now it's like everybody knows the DM coaches on Twitter. DMs are full. They definitely weren't back when I was back at like five years ago. Like, they're definitely full, but not as full as they are now. Like, coaches, most coaches have their DMs off because of that whole reason, which is why, like, email is kind of coming back now. Like, there's all this stuff that you have to think through. And so that's why cookie cutter advice doesn't work, is because, like, that cookie cutter stuff was made for five to 10 years ago. And it will always be behind the curve. Because, you know, I mean, for example, NCSA kind of was the leader with everything. Chris Krause, who started it, started back in like, I think the 80s, maybe back when, like, facts was around. So they're using strategies from that just to kind of like up to date things. And so they're always going to be had the curve and they're going to be the leader and it's going to kind of trickle down to other people. Hopefully me and a couple other people can break out of that mold and we can start pushing the industry standard. But all this general advice doesn't work. And so it doesn't work again for that reason, because it's now general advice. If you do what average people do, if you're doing what the average does, you're gonna blend in, you're gonna end up getting average results. And so on top of that, the second piece isn't just because everybody else is doing it, but also because recruiting is heavily context heavy. Context heavy. There's a lot of personalization to each thing. I was talking to a friend and he was kind of asking me like, dude, like this recruiting stuff, like, what do you do? Like, are you just kind of like, hey, do this, do that? Or like, like, I'm confused. Like, do you just give them videos and they watch it and they go do that? I'm like, no, dude. Like, I hop on calls and like, it's so. It just has to be so personalized to the person. I need to get so much context. Like, we have our office hour calls, you know, I was telling them, like, yeah, I have my office hours calls. You know, I'll get asked the question, but then I have to ask like 10 more questions because I need to get context on that situation. Like, how long have you been talking to this coach? Okay, what was the last message that you guys have sent back and forth? What was like, what was the tone of that conversation? Okay, have you seen him at a camp? Have you? Like, I need to get all this information because one small little mission can lead to what I tell them to either work or not work. Because, like, the situation of like, you talk to this coach over the phone versus you talk to the coach in the camp changes how we're going to approach that next step, that next message that we're going to send them, the next phone call that we're going to hop on with this coach. And so, like, some people again may think that's overkill and like, no, you don't need to do that, but it's just true. Like, the situation changes what we're going to do so heavily. I mean, even just program to program, like how I'm going to. How a coach at UAB over in Alabama is going to be different than how, you know, another group of five school is going to be approached in recruiting. And so that's why also cookie cutter advice doesn't work, is because, like, yes, the general steps of like, make a Highlight video, make a Twitter profile. Like, yes, those are the same for everyone. Of course, you want to put together differently for each person. So that's another personalization to that. But then like, the whole thing of, like, make sure to message coaches and make sure to, you know, have phone calls and visits with coaches. It's like those phone calls vary so much. I mean, it's just like, it's hard to give someone general advice on that stuff. I don't really, like I've done this, the content where I'm like, these are top five questions to ask college coaches. And they always do well, because people love, love cookie cutter advice. And it does help some people. But I can, I can imagine that some people ask those questions. And I don't plan on doing any more stuff like that because I can imagine some people ask some of those questions, but they're not in the right situation to get the answers to those questions. And. And it stalls the recruiting process. And so it's not, it's just so like person to person, situation to situation, coach to coach, that you can't apply this general advice to your recruiting all the time. And so that's why I'm a big fan of like, principles and insights. Because I guess to tell a story, to probably put this the best way, I was actually at a camp. I was at the Fresno State camp this last weekend on Saturday, and I was talking to, I was there, I had supposed to have a couple families come. Ended up only having one, which was fine. I got to talk to the dad for three hours. We just had a blast talking and watching his son perform. And it was awesome. It was just great to be in person finally and get to meet some of my families I work with. And so I'm here with the, the dad and we're just kind of talking about recruiting, obviously most of the time, because that's just what we do. And so we were chatting about it and he was like, I think the biggest thing. And I haven't really like, what he said. And this is what he's saying to me. He's like, the biggest thing is like, I haven't even told you a lot of this is like, I've learned so much from you. Not just from like your. What we've done in the calls, what we've done in the course and the content in the school group, but also like from your emails, your content. Like, I haven't even told you most of this stuff, but just the insights that I get, the principles that I learn, the. The stuff that I get from doing it. You. The thing, like, the thing is he said that like you have to do it. That's what like so many people don't understand is like you have to do it for yourself. Like you have to go through the recruiting process for yourself. You have to go to these camps for yourself to see what actually is going to pay off, what's not. Because you never know how things are going to work out and you learn your own lessons along the way. And these principles get proven, these, these, these insights get proven to you in your own way and story. And so it's just funny hearing that from a parent and him saying that himself. But yeah, a lot of it just comes down to principles because the tactics, the hard tactics, yes, they do work. I can tell you, hey, change your email to this and this is what we'll do. Like this will get your open rate this way and this will get your click rate this way and this will get your response rate this way and that'll work. But then if something changes, you need to make an adjustment. How are you gonna make that adjustment? You don't really know the process behind why that works. You don't really understand how to turn those interests into offers. And so there's so many different nuances to this stuff and you have to just take it from overall thinking, perspective. That's why I share my thoughts a lot of like, hey, one of my biggest philosophies is we make the job on the coach really easy and that will, that will allow you to put your own spin on things and apply that to your own context. Instead of me saying, hey, you need to do X, instead, think X and your actions will reflect that. So that's really the two big things. Why cookie cutter advice doesn't work, why Googling how to get recruited doesn't work. Hopefully that was some unique stories just to kind of share that with you again, if you're watching this kind of video, I'll just say like, you're ahead of the game, you're ahead of the curve, you're going to do great because like you're taking this stuff seriously. If you're a recruit watching this, kudos to you. If you're a parent watching this, again, kudos to you for helping out your son and carrying this much so whole. Wrap it up there. Hopefully you got something from this. Hopefully you got some good principles and insights and not hard tactics. So that way you can apply it to your recruiting and apply it to your context. Hopefully, like subscribe and if you want more stuff like this, go to yourfirstscholarship. Com. You can sign up for my daily email insights where I share with you lessons that I've learned and also give you the opportunity to work with me personally. So if you want to check that out, go to the link below and I'll see you soon. Peace.