Chow can join the big boys by recruiting little ones

University of Hawaii football coach Norm Chow’s big opportunity to grab recruiting headlines is coming this week.

Tuesday and Wednesday, he hosts the Warriors’ youth football camp on the UH campus, an event open to players from kindergarten through eighth grade, which, more and more, seems to be where the action is headed in recruiting these days.

This will be his opening to get a jump on future Rainbow Warriors — or whatever they will be calling UH players when the recruiting classes up through 2025 arrive on campus — and snag some offseason publicity.

Recent news reports tell us Chow’s brethren are putting the recruiting rush on younger and younger players these days, even before they have played so much as a down of high school football. Some of them are being solicited for college before they know where they will attend high school.

UCLA just extended a scholarship offer to an eighth-grade quarterback from Texas. USC has pitched an eighth-grade receiver from California. Louisiana State, Texas and Alabama are among the suitors of an inside linebacker from Baton Rouge, La. Not to be outdone, Kentucky is recruiting a seventh-grade cornerback from Indiana.

This is where Chow can make his splash. If there happens to be, say, a sixth-grader who can really motor at next week’s camp, then make him an offer. Or, better yet, make a pitch to a third-grader with considerable growth potential.

Never mind, of course, that Chow will be in his late 70s by the time they graduate from high school and will, no doubt, be watching UH games from in front of the TV with his buddies.

Or that the NCAA says prospective recruits can’t get written scholarship offers before Sept. 1 of their senior season of high school. Officially, coaches can’t even extend non-binding verbal offers on the premises at camps but may start the recruiting dance over the phone, later on.

But, then, this really isn’t so much about actually securing these prospects. It is about posturing and public relations. It looks like the coaches are plugged in and working hard, makes fans happy and keeps the school name out in front.

The fact is, coaches will tell you, that about 70 percent of the players who make verbal commitments — and we’re talking mostly juniors and seniors here — change their minds by National Letter of Intent day.

As for coaches, the average stay in one spot for a Division I head coach is less than four years, and there have been 62 head coaching changes among 124 schools in just over two years.

To put it in perspective locally, Greg McMackin offered then-13-year-old lineman Reeve Koehler of Saint Louis School a scholarship in 2009. But come signing date four months ago, McMackin was a year into retirement and Koehler, who had pledged to Tennessee before the Volunteers made a coaching change, ended up signing on with Arkansas.

“I can’t worry about (2018) now,” Chow said. “We have to worry about now and next year.”

Of course, Chow said with tongue firmly in cheek, “I have two grandsons who are both 3 years old. Maybe I could offer them (scholarships).”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.