UT’s Campbell preaches trust when recruiting

In college football, recruiting can be an exercise in patience, frustration and endurance. It is a long, grueling process for everyone involved and a journey full of surprises as well as disappointments.

But for Toledo head coach Matt Campbell, recruiting always boils down to one simple philosophy.

“We talk about trust in our recruiting and we talk about trust in our program,” Campbell said. “We are going to play the players we trust. If I’m not telling you the truth on the front end, once you get here how are you ever going to trust me and our coaches once you get into our football program?

“[Trust] is so critical today, maybe not as much in short-term success but certainly in long-term success in your football program.”

Campbell has been on both sides of the recruiting process. Originally committing to Pittsburgh, the Rockets’ head coach transferred to Mount Union to play under legendary coach Larry Kehres.

Campbell’s own experience as a young player now plays a major role in how he approaches the process as a coach.

“It is certainly different,” he said of the experience. “Everything is accelerated today more than it was when I was going through this process, but I think through my own process in going and playing Division I football and ending up at Mount Union, I think I wish I‘d had more transparency. I wish I would have approached it a different way.”

For Campbell, transparency allows him and his staff to build trust with recruits and their families. That means making sure all these young men understand the difficulties and hardships that will stand between them and their goals.

“No matter what you’ve done, it has given you this opportunity, but that’s not going to carry you through the rest of your career here,” he said. “Every school has 85 scholarship football players. It’s not what you did in the past that declares what happens, it is really the work ethic and the mindset that you come in with that is really going to help that transition piece.”

The Toledo approach to recruiting has paid off.

Scout.com ranked the Rockets’ most recent class of recruits second in total points and first in points per signee in the Mid-American Conference. This level of success on signing day is nothing new for Campbell and his staff, as their classes have ranked in the top echelon of the MAC since 2010.

UT’s recruiting success can’t be pinned solely on Campbell, who has an entire staff that painstakingly devotes its time to each potential signee.

That means spending quality time with both the player and his family.

“That part for us is really big, where they come from, who is that support system in their life,” Campbell said. “We are going to become that. These parents or guardians are giving us their most-prized possessions. That’s a big step.”

The philosophy UT’s staff utilizes is one Campbell preaches day-in and day-out both on and off the football field. It’s one that matters as much on signing day as it does at kickoff on Saturdays.

In the end, it all comes down to trust.

“The decision these guys make, it’s a four-year decision, but it’s a 40-year outcome,” Campbell said. “What happens in the next four to five years of their life dictate the next 40. They have to do a really good job of making sure they dot all their ‘Is’, they cross all their ‘Ts’ and they know exactly what they are getting themselves into.

“The more they know that coming into it, the more success rate you’re going to have at the end of it.”