How Tough Is it To Walk On To D1 College Baseball Team?

Hey, what's going on everyone. So today we're talking about college recruiting. We're getting to that time of year now where the college season for a lot of schools are getting close to winding down and the summer is always the biggest time of year when it comes to college baseball recruiting. And so I want to answer some of your questions. One question that I received today was about walking on at a division one college. And so I'm going to go into the possibilities of that happening. I get this question a lot. This isn't just from today. A lot of players are interested in the possibilities and what are the chances for players to be able to do that. Is that something they should pursue? And so I have a ton of experience with our baseball players playing at all different levels of college baseball. And so we've had players walk on the division one programs in the past. We've had them both be successful and unsuccessful. We've had players play at all different division levels every single year. If you look at our top Antonio baseball team, we have anywhere usually from five to seven players from that team go on to play the division one level and pretty much 100% of the players go on and play college baseball. And so again, I have experience at all different levels of college. And so let me give you my experience when it comes to this transfer again. Before we get into specific examples, I do want to preface this with saying I've now done this for, this will be I think my ninth year helping players in our program move on to play college baseball. And so we've had over 100 players go on to play. And the last couple of years have been the most difficult years when it comes to being recruited to play college baseball. And this year might end up being the most difficult and I don't know when that will finally end. This all started a few years ago when the entire college baseball season was canceled because of COVID. And when that happened, all of those players were granted an extra year of eligibility. So it is created now a backlog of players, right? So you have all these players that were given an extra year. Many of them took advantage of that. And then you had players from high school that were being recruited and going to college. So instead of basically having your freshman, sophomore, junior, and seniors in your program and your college program, colleges had freshman, sophomore, junior, seniors, and fifth year seniors who were basically given an extra year of eligibility. Now there's roster limits in college. So colleges can't just take as many players as they want. Now for the year after COVID, the NCAA said there won't be roster limits. So they allowed as many players as you want on a roster. Well, that helped for a year. But then those roster limits came back into effect. And so now colleges had all of these players and then they had to shrink down their roster sizes, which made it very, very difficult for a lot of players. What happened was a lot of players, one, players at those certain colleges were cut. They were let go. A lot of players transferred. The transfer portal exploded. Just tons and tons of players looking to transfer. And it's still that way. The transfer portal now is probably bigger than ever. So there's all of these players that had roster spots and then had those roster spots taken away from them. And so they had to go someplace else. So you have all these players transferring out of schools. Now what that did was it allowed schools to then have a choice of all of these players looking to leave their current schools and go to other schools. And so college coaches now have two choices. They can recruit high school players or they can look at transfers. Now they've always been able to look at transfers. But now the number of transfers just, again, it exploded. And so less and less high school players were being recruited to the Division I level. And this had a trickle-down effect to every division. Because those colleges, a lot of them said, well, I can take a senior in high school that I have seen play a couple times, watched some video of and seen him play against high school competition, or I can take this transfer that has already played college baseball, maybe has some stats, was recruited to a very good school. Who do I want to take? So it's become much more difficult. There are much less spots out there for high school players trying to be recruited. So I want to make sure we understand the landscape first. So now, if you're looking to walk on, think about this. It has become so difficult just to get a college roster spot at any level, never mind a Division I level, where in a typical year, less than 2% of high school players are going to go on to play Division I baseball. And now we have a situation where it's even more difficult. And so think about it from a walk-on perspective. If you want to walk on to a school, you have to, more likely than not, if you're looking to walk on to a Division I school, you're going to have to beat someone out that has been recruited and possibly given a scholarship offer to. That becomes very, very difficult. So you were not recruited to the school, and you're going to have to beat out someone that was recruited to the school or someone that was already on the roster. So it is very, very tough to do. And I do think this is probably a misconception by most people, and we've talked a lot about college recruiting, a lot of players think that they're just going to end up going to their favorite school, not realizing how many players there are around the country that want to also go to that school and how much talent there really is. So you have to really keep this in mind when you're looking to transfer, or excuse me, walk on to a college. The odds of that happening are very, very low. Now have I seen it happen before? Yes, I have seen it happen before. But it is difficult. So the recommendation that I would give the players, and let's talk about real quick the walk-on process, what typically happens is you're going to get to campus and you're going to be given a very, very quick workout typically in the fall. When I coached in college, walk-ons were given basically one day to work out, and if we happen to see someone that just randomly for whatever reason said, I desperately want to go to this school and I'm going no matter what, and they could have went and played college baseball at a bunch of different places, but they had no interest. They only wanted to go to Merrimack or UMass Lowell, I'm just picking schools that are right close to my house, and so that player just happened to randomly stumble upon your campus and they show up and they're throwing 92 with a nasty breaking ball and spotting balls up, that person might make the team. That is very, very, very rare that that happens. You've got to make a huge impression in a very, very short amount of time, and like I said, you have to probably, not probably, you have to beat out players that were already recruited to that school or someone currently on that roster. So really difficult to do. If you want to do it, here's a couple things to keep in mind. The first thing is, I would make sure, 100%, you have to make sure that the college that you're going to, that you're very happy going there, whether you play baseball or not. That's the first thing I say. So for instance, we had a player a few years ago that wanted to go to Northeastern. They said, Northeastern is my number one school. That's where I want to go. I want to play baseball there. This player could have played baseball at a lot of other schools, but they said, I want to play baseball at Northeastern. Going into that, I explained to this player that Northeastern was a long shot. Chances of them trying to walk on there were less than 1%, probably far less than 1%, right? It's going to be very difficult. They said, that's fine. I want to go to college here if I make the team outstanding. If I don't make the team, that's okay. I want to go to college here. They went to walk-on trials. They didn't make the team. They actually ended up playing club baseball and having a great experience. So you have to go into that understanding and accepting that there's a very, very good chance that you don't make the team. If you don't make the team, you're not going to want to transfer out of school and go someplace else. If that is your mentality, it's a very bad idea to try to walk on to a school. You're going there because of the academics, because of the social experience. Take baseball out of the equation. Baseball is just a bonus if you make the team. That's the way you've really got to look at it for most players. So please keep that in mind. Now, if you decide that you still want to go through with it, then I would reach out to that coach and I would reach out to them via email and let them know before you get on campus, put together a video, basically like you're trying to be recruited to that school. Let them know that you're coming. I would contact your summer ball coach, your high school coach, and have them contact the school and let them know as well. I would also talk to your coach, just like this player that I gave an example about talked to me and said, what do you think my chances are playing there? Because we've had lots of players that go to Northeastern, as well as many other schools. And so I was very honest and let them know. Again, there are some examples of players that maybe you don't have a summer ball coach, maybe you were not playing in tournaments or going to showcases, and maybe you are an amazing player. And the college just has no idea who you are. Then maybe your chances of making the team are a little bit better. But if you have someone that you've played travel ball with or played high school with that has experience sending players to schools, make sure you ask them their opinion. Do you think I can make this team? And find someone that will be honest with you. I think that's really, really important. And so those would be kind of my steps to if you want to walk onto a program. Go into it with the understanding that playing baseball there is going to be difficult. Make sure you're not going to transfer if you don't make the team. Go there because of the academics and the social experience. Reach out to the coaching staff before you get there. Ask your summer ball or your high school coach if you have the ability to play there. And then ask them to reach out for you prior to fall tryouts. Hopefully that gives you some understanding of the process, of the chances. I don't mean to make this sound like it is impossible, but you do want to be realistic and understand that it is very, very, very difficult. I would hate to see players, and I've seen it happen before, players think, well, I can play anywhere. I'm just going to go walk onto the school. And they get there, and they get cut, and then they say, I have to leave now. I didn't really want to come to this school. I just wanted to play baseball here. That would be a mistake for players. So hopefully this helps you out. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. 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