Mike MacIntyre says he helped start a West Coast recruiting revolution.
As head coach at San Jose State (2010-12), MacIntyre staffed his assistants at high school football camps across California, from Sacramento to San Diego, as visiting talent evaluators in what are now commonly known as satellite camps. At these camps dozens of colleges can scout hundreds of athletes. San Jose State jumped from one to 11 wins in three seasons, which helped MacIntyre land the job at Colorado.
“We were really the first team to ever do it in the west, us, and we copied Oklahoma State,” MacIntyre said. “When I got here, the Pac-12 wouldn’t allow you to do it.” League rules were changed and MacIntyre started doing it at CU.
Satellite camps were the talk of college football in the spring of 2016 when the NCAA briefly barred the practice when Big Ten programs infiltrated SEC recruiting grounds, or as MacIntyre explained, “Other schools just kind of went on steroids with it.” The NCAA later reversed its ban and now about every major college football program in the country has joined the club.
“I think that if you’re someone that just recruits off the internet, looks at somebody’s highlight tape and how many offers they have and make decisions that way, it probably doesn’t matter to you,” CU co-offensive coordinator Klayton Adams said. “But I want to say we’re pretty old school in the way that we evaluate. We want to put our hands on a kid in a camp and be able to coach him and see how he responds to some of our coaching.”
MacIntyre said a typical recruiting class at CU is composed of about 20-to-25 percent players evaluated at satellite camps. Notable additions to CU’s 2018 class who received scholarship offers from those events are defensive back Hasaan Hypolite (Missouri City, Texas), defensive end Tava Finau (Sacramento, Calif.) and defensive back Lavon Wallace (Atwater, Calif.).
NCAA rules do not allow guest coaches at satellite camps to promote their attendance on social media. MacIntyre said CU coaches will attend five out-of-state camps this summer, and so far the following sites have been confirmed: June 2 at University of Redlands (Calif.), June 11 at Houston Baptist (Texas) and June 16 at Sacramento State (Calif.).
“You go to Houston and there are 350 players there,” MacIntyre said. “That’s very key to us to be able to see them, work with them and evaluate them.”
2019 prospects to watch
Notable CU scholarship offers to currently uncommitted 2019 recruits, per 24/7 Sports.
WR Braedin Huffman-Dixon, 6-3, 180 (Mater Dei High School / Calif.): A four-star prospect with interest from Georgia, Nebraska, USC and others. Has indicated interest in taking an official visit to Boulder.
TE Brayden Liebrock, 6-5, 220 (Chandler High School / Ariz.): A three star prospect with 18 scholarship offers, including Notre Dame, Ohio State and Texas. Liebrock has scheduled an official visit to CU.
DE Troy Fautanu, 6-4, 263 (Liberty High School / Nev.): A three-star prospect with interest from California, Washington State, Utah and others. Has indicated interest in taking an official visit to Boulder.
