College recruiting has no offseason

HUNTINGTON -- It's a process that begins with hundreds of names on a board, spanning the country and occasionally beyond.

College football coaches huddle within hours of season's end, defining high school and junior college student-athletes targeted toward the following year's recruiting class. Next comes spring and summer camps for prep prospects, an important get-to-know-you time for both prospect and coach.

Marshall University assistant coaches spent virtually all of May on the road visiting prospects. The script flipped this month when Marshall hosted three camps, including a senior advanced camp featuring dozens of Division I-A prospects.

Whittling a board of hundreds to a signing class of twentysomething concludes on Feb. 4, 2009, national signing day. That process kicks into high gear when official visits kick off during football season, but recruiting never is deleted from the to-do list, even in late June.

"We're getting everything in order so we know who we're going to offer and who we're not going to offer -- who we need to keep an eye on for the fall," said Thundering Herd safeties coach Shannon Morrison, a former Marshall player who's experienced both perspectives of the recruiting experience.

College coaches can't comment on specific prospects because of NCAA rules, but Morrison said Marshall's 2009 recruiting scope remains broad. Verbal commitment announcements normally begin in late summer, continue through season's start and conclude during December and January.

Several dozen prospects have been offered scholarships by Marshall, a total that will expand in the coming months. Many of the reported offers have been extended to high school prospects ranked in the top 100 nationally at their respective positions.

"We still have quite a few guys on the board because right now we're in the process of battling some of the bigger schools and we don't know who's going to come in so we have a good-sized board," Morrison said. "We're going to continue to recruit a good number of guys from everybody's areas."

Recruiting coordinator Mike Cummings and head coach Mark Snyder each point to Marshall's summer camps as integral to the big picture. Just a handful of campers -- at best -- will sign with the Thundering Herd, but a single day in Huntington has proved the difference in recent years.

"We coach them and evaluate them and they get a chance to look at the campus and meet the coaches," Cummings said. "I think that's as important as anything that they get to get on campus and meet the coaches and learn how the coaches coach."