With Butler Football announcing its class of 2022 just last week, the program now prepares for another long process for their next group of recruits.
College recruiting in Butler’s football program is built on a year-to-year basis. The process starts by regions, as each position coach is assigned at least one area of the United States to cover. Running-backs coach Matthew McCarroll, for example, recruits athletes from highschools in Kentucky and Florida.
“Anybody from those areas that we think are good prospects, I’ll kind of shake the tree and get that process going,” McCarroll says, “Then, at that point, I let the position coach kind of watch him.”
Once the position coach is alerted of the recruit, he or she can start developing a recruiting board that places each of the most desired recruits for the program on a list.
“As we get closer and closer to signing day, deeper and deeper into the process, you get your, trim your fat so to speak, you get your legitimate recruits,” McCarroll says.
When it comes to advertising Butler as the right program to his recruits, McCaroll uses three, primary attributes of the university, the first being Butler’s campus.
“You know once you get on campus if this is gonna be the school for you, so I could recruit the heck out of you, but if you don’t like it [campus] then it is what it is.”
The second aspect relies on Butler’s significant and praised academic programs.
“Just from a school standpoint, we have a lot of stuff we can offer, such as internships to jobs.”
Finally, McCarroll focuses on promoting the city of Indianapolis as much as he does the university.
“We sell the city just as much as the school. You can drive 15 minutes and be downtown already for a football or basketball game.”
As far as what Butler looks for in a recruit, they have two focal points: academics and love of football.
“That’s vital. To have guys who love football. That’s like the overarching thing, and then the type of school you go to, you have to be great in the classroom as well. And if you’re those two things, then we can at least kick the tires on you.”
Butler Football is also strongly adamant about finding the right athletes where the program is best for everyone. The recruitment process takes significant time to judge each athlete and carefully determine if Butler Football is the appropriate place.
“I never want to get a kid here just to get a kid here,” says McCarroll, “It has to be a great fit for both parties.”
The recruiting process is long and arduous, but with coaches like McCarroll, Butler Football hopes to bring in the right guys to push the program forward.
The program will commence its season this fall on September 17, putting the newly-signed athletes into action.
