Good article about the day in the life of VU recruiting coordinator Nik Valdiserri. This is from a month ago but just showed up on my Twitter feed. It didn't show up on my feed on the Athletic site, although I'm following VU Football there. It's behind their paywall, so I'll just post a few snippets.
"Similar to the way Notre Dame prioritized recruits when Valdiserri worked with the Fighting Irish, Vanderbilt categorizes its prospects with three tiers.
The top tier is reserved for commits and players the program is aggressively pursuing. The second tier, a group that Vanderbilt refers to as “hold,” is the list of players the Commodores have offered but who may be missing a trait — whether that’s academically or athletically. There are exceptions, but Vanderbilt signees are expected to have a 3.0-grade point average in order to stay in line with the school’s rigorous academic standards. Then the third tier is a group the Commodores call “monitor” — prospects who are local with lower-level offers or players whom Vanderbilt has already evaluated in the event something falls through in the top tiers."
"
Valdiserri has the title of director of recruiting, but the department is headed up by Barton Simmons, Lea’s childhood friend who was previously a national recruiting analyst at 247Sports. Simmons, Valdiserri and the rest of the staff are charged with identifying prospects who can handle the academic workload at Vanderbilt and — perhaps more importantly — compete in the SEC.
“We’re trying to send the message, ‘You’re not coming here for anything but to play football at Vanderbilt,'” Valdiserri said. “And I know it all sounds crazy, too, like, ‘Oh, you’ve got the degree, you’ve got the city,’ but if we’re having kids choose Vanderbilt football because of the academics, then we’re doing an injustice to our program. This has to be a football decision for our guys that we’re recruiting.”
"
He jokes that maybe he’ll run a brewery in 15 years, given all of his different interests. But for now, this is all he can think about. And working for Lea was a no-brainer.
“I knew if he offered me a job … I would have probably taken it regardless just because of who he was. Or who he is,” Valdiserri says. “And so I always joke with recruits, it’s kind of my sales pitch, ‘If he had moved to Alaska and wanted to build a program there — I would have been following suit.”’"
theathletic.com
"Similar to the way Notre Dame prioritized recruits when Valdiserri worked with the Fighting Irish, Vanderbilt categorizes its prospects with three tiers.
The top tier is reserved for commits and players the program is aggressively pursuing. The second tier, a group that Vanderbilt refers to as “hold,” is the list of players the Commodores have offered but who may be missing a trait — whether that’s academically or athletically. There are exceptions, but Vanderbilt signees are expected to have a 3.0-grade point average in order to stay in line with the school’s rigorous academic standards. Then the third tier is a group the Commodores call “monitor” — prospects who are local with lower-level offers or players whom Vanderbilt has already evaluated in the event something falls through in the top tiers."
"
Valdiserri has the title of director of recruiting, but the department is headed up by Barton Simmons, Lea’s childhood friend who was previously a national recruiting analyst at 247Sports. Simmons, Valdiserri and the rest of the staff are charged with identifying prospects who can handle the academic workload at Vanderbilt and — perhaps more importantly — compete in the SEC.
“We’re trying to send the message, ‘You’re not coming here for anything but to play football at Vanderbilt,'” Valdiserri said. “And I know it all sounds crazy, too, like, ‘Oh, you’ve got the degree, you’ve got the city,’ but if we’re having kids choose Vanderbilt football because of the academics, then we’re doing an injustice to our program. This has to be a football decision for our guys that we’re recruiting.”
"
He jokes that maybe he’ll run a brewery in 15 years, given all of his different interests. But for now, this is all he can think about. And working for Lea was a no-brainer.
“I knew if he offered me a job … I would have probably taken it regardless just because of who he was. Or who he is,” Valdiserri says. “And so I always joke with recruits, it’s kind of my sales pitch, ‘If he had moved to Alaska and wanted to build a program there — I would have been following suit.”’"
‘It’s just football 24/7’: A day in the life of a Power 5 recruiting coordinator
Nik Valdiserri initially went to school to study journalism at Missouri but got hooked on recruiting after transferring to Notre Dame.
theathletic.com
