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Getting recruiting exposure not easy in Western Nebraska
When you are located hundreds of miles from a major city finding ways to get recruiting exposure can be difficult.
However, if there's one coach in Nebraska that's figured out a formula to get Division I coaches to travel west, it's McCook head coach Jeff Gross.
Gross's McCook program has had three players sign Division I scholarships to Big 12 schools over the last four years.
In the last four years the Bison have had three players sign Division I-A scholarships with Big 12 schools and a grand total of 24 McCook football players have signed football scholarships over that same period.
The way Gross sees it, it's his job as the head coach to do whatever he can to make sure Division I schools become aware of his potential prospects.
Even if that means having a local Bison supporter donating his private plane to transport players to Division I camps across the country during the summer, Gross makes sure it happens.
"It's a challenge that the head coach has to be up to," Gross said. "You are their agent. Some day if these guys are good enough they are going to have a real agent that's going to get paid, but as their high school football coach I view myself as their agent. It's my job to market them. It's my job to put a quality highlight film together with information and get that into the people's hands that need it."
It was that persistence by Gross that helped Kansas State find out about Tony Purvis late in the process when the Wildcats were undergoing a coaching transition in 2006.
The 6-foot, 160 pound Purvis had an impressive highlight reel and a 4.44 second 40-yard dash time from the Kansas State NIKE Training camp to go with it.
Gross sent Purvis's junior and senior highlight videos to all 115 Divisions I-A programs at the time, and his hard work led to Purvis getting late offers from both Idaho and KSU.
"My first few years I was sending out 115 tapes around the country to every Division I University," Gross said. "I've wised up and gotten a little smarter since then. It's probably a waste of time for me to send a tape to the University of Texas.
"They aren't going to recruit anybody outside of their state. I still send a lot out, but you really learn fast who to market to and that's an advantage I have because I've learned that.
"We know to market to the Big 12 North schools. Every one of them is going to take a look if you have a legitimate kid. You have to hit the Mountain West schools if you have a kid because they are going to legitimately look at you. The Big 10 is going to look at you too with Iowa and Wisconsin. You have to market to the schools that are going to take a strong look at you. Even schools with Nebraska ties like Ohio and even Buffalo are teams you have to market to."
McCook defensive end Tyrone Sellers signed with Kansas this year and was the No. 1 ranked player in the state of Nebraska for the Class of 2009.
In the last few years Division I coaches from Nebraska, Stanford, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa, Wyoming, Colorado State, Air Force, Ohio, Oklahoma State, Buffalo and Wake Forest have made the trek across the state to evaluate prospects at McCook.
You'd be hard pressed to find a school in the state outside of Millard North and Omaha Central that's received that type of foot traffic over the same period.
"I think we are the smallest school in the Big 12 to have three Division I football players playing in that conference," Gross said. "Great football players make coaches look smart.
"When you've got great players you are going to win games. We've just been on this unbelievable run of having great players and having speed. Then when we haven't had great speed, we've had a run of size come through. It's been a great run."
To sum up McCook's run, they've won 69 regular season games in a row, played in seven straight Class B semifinals, five state championship games and they've won two state titles over that period.
When Gross looks ahead to next season, he knows maintaining the standard of excellence won't be an easy task after losing a talented senior class of 27 players.
The Bison will be led by 5-foot-8, 170-pound all-purpose running back prospect Andy Smith in 2009, but Gross will be the first one to tell you he's not a Division I-A scholarship type of player.
Gross said that Smith is more than likely a Division I-AA or Division II scholarship prospect, but he fully expects him to be an 1,800-yard, 200-carry running back for him this fall.
"He's a kid that can carry the load for us," Gross said. "We are going to have to find ourselves a new identity. We don't have Matt Berry and Tyrone Sellers and the firepower we used to, so you have to have somebody you can rely on in the tough situations, and that's going to be Andy Smith.
"He's a kid though that maybe because of some exposure an unbelievable year could lead to a walk-on offer from Nebraska or could get him a scholarship to play at Northern Colorado or South Dakota, because that's legitimate. If he has a good year and does nothing spectacular, hopefully he's set up to go to a Chadron State or Kearney, and there's nothing wrong with that. Those are good schools that play good football too."
Smith is a player who's more or less grown up in the Bison program, as his father Jerry Smith is the principal of McCook high school.
This summer Smith is looking at attending camps at Nebraska, Kansas and Kansas State to show different Division I-A schools what he's made of.
Smith said the winning he has experienced in the Bison program over the last few years has made him fear no one.
"Just watching the older guys on the field and winning all the time, you get used to it," Smith said. "It's hard to lose. You are used to winning all the time."
When Gross reflects back to the winning his program has experienced over that period, he said all the credit should be given to the players for the hard work they've done to make it possible.
"You never get into this expecting those types of things to happen," Gross said. "You have to be lucky. Having a Division I athlete is God given. I've had kids that have had way more work ethic and desire than even the kids that are Division I, but those Division kids had either the frame or the speed and the things to go with. You're blessed to have the type of talent we've had."