West Virginia’s Dana Holgersen says coaches lie a bunch in recruiting
The world of recruiting can often be full of deception, shady practices and even illegal activity in both college football and basketball and West Virginia head football coach Dana Holgersen admitted that lying happens a bunch at the Mountaineers media day on Monday.
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Trying to convince a five-star recruit to come to your school and playing time is an important factor in his recruitment?
No problem, just tell him he’ll have a chance to win a starting job as a freshman.
Forget about the three other five-star recruits already on campus and ahead of him on the depth chart, a recruit hears he has a chance and interprets that as he’s going to be the starter.
Need to get keep a recruit away from one of your rivals?
No problem, just tell the recruit that the coach at that school won’t be around for him all four years because he’ll be headed to the NFL or for a bigger college job.
This does happen all the time, at some places more than others, but it’s not an Earth-shattering revelation from Holgersen, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter for the West Virginia football and basketball teams, Stephen J. Nesbitt, offered some context to Holgersen’s comments and how it related to new NCAA rules.
“There will be a lot of talk as far as what we’re going to be able to do. People will use this to their advantage in recruiting. I think the next step is to have some sort of situation where everyone is doing the same thing. There are a lot of questions, but we will figure it out. It’s about what reality is. I know you lie in recruiting a bunch, and that’s just part of it.
“Our job is to get guys on campus. Once they’re on campus, our players do a lot of recruiting. They spend a lot of time with the recruits, and I encourage them to tell the truth about what we give them and how we treat them. Administratively, I think that will either work to our advantage or to our disadvantage.”
Recruiting can be a slimy game, but Holgersen is trying to keep things on the up-and-up as much as possible.