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Odds for an athletic scholarship don't depend on participation numbers
Some recruiting services pitch exposure as the ultimate recruiting tool and the number one reason that you won't be recruited if you don't have it! While exposure is important, it's exposure at the right level coupled with a coaches needs, as no amount of exposure will help you get recruited by a college coach if you lack the size or skill to play for that coach and team.
According to the National Federation of High Schools, the greatest participation is in high school football, with 1,023,142 boys participating at the high school level? What does this mean for your recruiting efforts? Well, nothing really!
The Latest recruiting services pitches I have heard lately are these. "There are 6.9 million high school athletes, how will you stand out" - “There are 254,000 seniors who play high school football. There are only 5,042 athletic scholarships awarded at the D1 level. Your odds are 1-50 that you get a scholarship.”
The 6.9 million has nothing to do with your recruiting process mainly because over 6 million of those kids are underclassmen and don't play your sport and quite frankly, it's a meaningless number. If you want to know how meaningless it is, consider this - Nationally, out of 100 9th graders, 68 will graduate from high school, 40 will enter college directly, 27 are still enrolled in college in their second year, and 18 will graduate from college. - US Dept. of Education -
Let's look at the second statement in more detail about high school football participation.
There are several problems with looking at the football participation number. First off, not every high school athlete who plays football in high school is interested in playing in college, just as not every person who goes to high school goes to college. Some students play sports in high school just to play sports and have no desire to continue after high school. Secondly, there are not 5,042 athletic scholarships each year a the D1 level for football.
D1 football team are required to offer 85 athletic scholarships (and no more per team) and there are 117 football teams at the 1A level and you can divide 85 by 4 because each coach has about 21.25 scholarships per year.
At the D1 level, there are roughly 2,486 athletic scholarships available each year. (21.25 scholarships x 117 schools) give or take a few scholarships as no coach can recruit .25 players.
There are 121 1-AA football teams. These teams are allowed to offer 63 athletic scholarships per team. 63 athletic scholarships divided by 4 years equals about 16 scholarships a year. 16 scholarships a year times 121 teams equals 1,936 athletic scholarships available per year. But wait, each football team in the Ivy League competes at the 1AA level, but they do not offer athletic scholarships. Right there can deduct about 150 scholarships. to maybe 1,750 at the 1AA level. It's also unlikely that every 1AA team offers 63 scholarships but for the sake of argument, we will say they do.
Now, let's say there are roughly 4,240 football scholarships awarded at the D1 level (including 1AA) each year, and that's assuming every 1AA team offers the max (highly unlikely).
Now to the important stuff!
Not every high school football player is going to play D1, wants to play D1, or can play D1. How can someone say that you are competing for a scholarship at the D1 level against a 150 pound backup receiver who would be lucky to play at the lowest D3 level in the country?
Lets say 50% of all high school (senior) football players want to play in college (which I think is a very generous estimate), the total number drops to 127,000 senior football players. Now there are 119 1A teams, 121 1AA teams, 151 D2 teams and 229 D3 teams. That's 620 teams. If each team had 50 players, there are enough spots for 31,000 high school football players to play in college. Some college programs carry over 100 players even 120 and some times might only have 40, it all depends on the program, but 50 per team I think is a fairly generous estimate on my pat.
Lets now say that out of those 127,000 kids who want to play football in college, only 20% have the skill, the size, the speed, and desire to play at the highest D1 level. Now the number is 25,400 players. A far cry from the 1-50 odds of getting a D1 scholarship and more like 1 in 6. (25,000+ players for roughly 4,000+ spots). This doesn't factor in the fact that many of these players might be basketball or baseball players who have no interest of playing football in college, but are still playing football in high school and get counted in the pool of 1 million plus players. And this will go for many sports, as there is so much overlap at the high school level.
It has nothing to do with numbers of high school players and all to do with how many players want to continue at D1 and can continue at D1. If you don’t have the skill to play at the D1 level, you have NO odds, but if you do have the skill and desire to play D1 football, the odds of you receiving an athletic scholarship are better than others would like you to know. In reality, you are not competing against 254,000 other kids, you are competing against a few thousand kids who possess the size, skill, and speed to play at that level. Again, while exposure is important, it's exposure at the right level that will help you get recruited. You cannot buy skill and no amount of exposure will make up for a lack of skill, especially at the D1 football level (or any level for that matter).
These same arguments apply to any sport, regardless of exposure - in order to receive an athletic scholarship three things have to happen. One, you have to find a program that has available scholarships to offer. Two - you have to find a program that has a pressing need that the coach is trying to fill. - And three, you have to be extremely talented and you have to contact the coach and find a way to display your skills to that coach. While there are hundreds of thousands of high school athletes, there are not hundreds of thousands of high school athletes that have the skills to compete at the high D1 level or the skills to be awarded an athletic scholarship.
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