STARKVILLE — Mike Villagrana sits in his office with a piece of paper in his hand, densely packed with information. It’s sorted by position and by year, both current Mississippi State football players and the scores of recruits they’re chasing. All the prospects are ranked and group by those rankings; it’s color-coded in more than one category. Blank space is hard to find, on both sides of the sheet.
It’s nothing compared to the system in his computer, the one he organizes for the entire coaching staff.
In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch, Villagrana, Mississippi State’s Director of Recruiting, described how MSU coordinates its evaluation process and recruiting information. It’s done in a way where each member of the staff has every piece of information possible on any recruit, plus all of the film MSU has on him and previous evaluations of the given recruit.
“It’s information overload, to be honest,” Villagrana said.
It’s all done through Radar Recruiting, a service by Bluechip Athletic Solutions. MSU coach Joe Moorhead and Villagrana used it while they were under James Franklin at Penn State; Radar lists multiple clients among the college football elite, including Georgia, Auburn, Notre Dame, Florida State, Clemson and Michigan.
To start, every player MSU is monitoring has a profile in its Radar system. In the system goes everything on each player: address, parents and siblings, transcripts, notes on injuries or other things, any connections to MSU, the recruit’s top schools and more. It’s certainly a good resource to have when coaches call recruits.
The true value of Radar is in how MSU uses it as an evaluation system.
When the full staff was hired, Villagrana asked each position coach for seven qualities they look for in their positions when they evaluate recruits. Villagrana uploaded each of those qualities to the system and they are displayed automatically when watching a given position. For example, when a MSU staffer watches film of a wide receiver prospect, they will automatically have a list of what offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Luke Getsy looks for in a player.
The evaluation process starts with the recruiting staff, now made up of 10 full-time workers. This week, the department will clear with compliance and train 14 film interns — a position Villagrana says MSU did not have under Dan Mullen — that will be responsible for cutting the film of every player MSU is monitoring, regardless of how seriously interested MSU is. Those film interns will take prospects’ games and cut out the dead time between plays or times they are not on the field, giving the recruiting and coaching staff just the plays the given recruit was in.
From there, the recruiting staff evaluates them all. Using the criteria set forth by the position coaches, they give each prospect a grade on each quality and then an overall grade. Those overall grades equate to whether a prospect is considered an automatic offer, a player to evaluate further before offering or a player to continue monitoring in case they develop to the point of an offer.
The recruiting staff takes it on themselves to track every player, regardless of their evaluation, knowing how high school players can develop rapidly.
“It’s our responsibility to be aware of those guys,” Villagrana said. “(Quarterbacks coach/passing game coordinator Andrew) Breiner and (running backs coach/run game coordinator Charles) Huff don’t need to be aware of those guys yet. We’re going to keep them in our holding tank, talk to them, keep them warm, get them to a game.
“We need to make sure we get every single one of these guys cut up.”
If Villagrana sees a prospect that he believes merits consideration from an assistant coach, all he has to do is assign that video to the position coach in Radar; it sends a notification to the coach’s phone and to his email inbox telling he’s been assigned film. If the position coach’s evaluation is in line with that of the recruiting staff, the film is then assigned to Moorhead; Villagrana said Moorhead evaluates every single prospect.
The morning after Moorhead evaluates the film, it will be played in a staff meeting, where the entire staff can share notes and make a final decision on the offer.
All told, it’s not uncommon for the film of a prospect to be evaluated by four people before a decision is made, and for those are not automatic offers, the evaluation process will be ongoing to monitor development. It’s a lot of information passed around to a lot of people; Radar makes it possible.
“That’s why it’s huge to streamline it,” Villagrana said. “It’s good for us, it keeps us on track.”
As Villagrana flips that piece of paper in his hand, the one that’s a condensed version of Radar, he says organizing MSU’s recruiting efforts is one of his favorite parts of the job. It’s also the one he’s best at, and Moorhead gives him complete freedom to do it.
“Working for him is awesome,” Villagrana said. “He allows me to develop, he allows us to develop as a department. It’s incredible.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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