Here are 5 Tips that will help you increase your chances for a scholarship:

1. Start early. Gone are the days of waiting until your senior season has ended and waiting for a couple of college coaches to contact you. Successful players are now starting in their sophomore and early in their junior year.
2. Attend summer camps and combines. By selecting the right camps and combines to attend you can go from high school athlete to college recruit in one day. Not all camps and combines are created equal so make sure you choose ones that will maximize your exposure and recruiting potential.
3. Get the best academic grades and test scores possible. Colleges keep raising the minimum that they will grant waivers for athletes. If you graduate with under a 3.0 GPA, you just shut the door on 50% of NCAA schools. It is never too late to increase your grades so make it a priority now.
4. Play multiple sports. College coaches like to see football players who excel in other sports like track, wrestling, lacrosse, baseball and basketball. Athletic diversity shows true raw athletic talent and can make up for minor deficiencies on the football field. Football is a sport where specialization does not matter as much as raw athletic talent.
5. Do it yourself. Handle the recruiting process yourself. This shows much more initiative than a player whose family pays a recruiting service to fax out online profiles and make a fancy highlight tape. College football coaches evaluate much more than your athletic ability. Determination and initiative show a lot towards whether the high school athlete will be a success in college.

There are many other little details that go into making a successful recruiting season. The most important is having the desire and wanting to play in college for the right reasons. If you have a solid strategy for recruiting, you can earn a football scholarship and beat out the thousands of other athletes all fighting for the same spot.

There is an ugly rumor that persists in the football recruiting and scholarship process. The rumor is that your football academics really don’t matter if you are good enough to play at the college level. Especially if you are a blue chip or elite level player.

Don’t believe this rumor. Academics are a crucial part of playing college football before and after your are recruited. Many players who believed this ugly rumor was true, are now watching football from the sidelines or on television!

Before You Are Recruited:

Football coaches want players who can stay academically eligible to play. Sure, they want the best talent they can get, but they also realize talent does not matter if the kid can’t stay on the field due to being ineligible. Also, coaches usually recruit five or more players for each roster spot they have. If the talent levels are pretty close, the coach will usually give the scholarship offer to the kid who has the best high school GPA. It rewards the kid for hard work in the classroom, and it helps the coach to know he has signed a player who will stay eligible to play.

After You Sign The Scholarship:

Your football academics remain vitally important after you sign the scholarship and you are on the roster. In order to stay eligible to play, you must maintain a high enough GPA to remain active on the team. If you don’t do this, the coach has no choice to make you ineligible. If he doesn’t and the program gets caught by the NCAA or NAIA, all games won will usually have to be forfeited.

If you want to be recruited, maintaining your football academics is a must. Also, you should make contact with college coaches and let them know about your performance on the field and in the classroom. All coaches are looking for athletes who can perform on the field as well as excel in the classroom.