Schmit: Prep football combines serve as one-stop shopping for colleges

Always read the fine print.

When the IHSA released its annual list of approved bylaw amendment proposals in December — proposals approved by a majority of voting member schools — all eyes went to Proposal 19. Starting in the fall, we’ll see an expansion of the football playoffs.

Lost in the shuffle, but not in importance, was Proposal 12. Overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 517-104, it allows high schools to attend one free football combine in front of college coaches. Up to 20 players per high school can participate.

It’s huge news for prep football players in Illinois.

Instead of college coaches traveling from high school to high school each spring, putting individual recruits through athletic evaluations, they can now attend these organized combines.

With 10 to 15 high schools attending each combine, college coaches have the opportunity of one-stop shopping. They’ll see up to 300 potential recruits participate in testing and drills at every site.

Because of the organization among the high school football coaches, college coaches can attend 15 combines spread from Collinsville to Rochester and Rockford. There are no scheduling conflicts.

In our area, West Chicago, Hinsdale Central, St. Charles North, Naperville North, Stevenson and St. Viator will host combines starting next Wednesday and rolling into the middle of May. Nearly 50 football programs in our coverage area will attend a combine, representing the Mid-Suburban, North Suburban, Upstate Eight, West Suburban and many more leagues.

Spring combines actually took place before the approval of Proposal 12. Glenbard South coach Ryan Crissey and Naperville North coach Sean Drendel organized them but did so — and this is important — with the blessing of the IHSA.

But because college coaches remained hesitant about committing under temporary approvals, Crissey and Drendel didn’t see a desired level of participating colleges.

When it was time to submit bylaw amendment proposals this cycle, Crissey and Drendel decided to go for it in an attempt to expand the combines. Clearly, their message was well-received with Proposal 12.

Now, with the official mandate, colleges are committing in droves. To guarantee no gray areas, IHSA assistant executive director Sam Knox wrote an open letter to college coaches letting them know the combines are authorized.

As of early this week, Crissey said more than 60 colleges from various levels have committed to attend the combines.

If you’re wondering if the combines push Illinois closer to full-fledged spring football, they do. Many states, especially in the south, practice and even have games in the spring. Illinois historically has shied away from such a commitment, in part because of the conflict spring football would have with established spring sports.

Even with these one-day combines, there’s potential conflict for multisport athletes. The combines need to be spread across numerous days so colleges can attend as many as they’d like, so some may interfere with a prep baseball game or a track and field meet.

That’s not ideal, and the potential for expanding spring football in Illinois is a legitimate topic for another day.

But for the purpose of streamlining the spring recruiting process, these combines are ideal. High school football coaches, while understanding, don’t love the existing system of constantly pulling kids out of class to push them through workouts in front of college coaches.

We’ll see how much the combines expand and take root, but the initial response has been tremendous since Proposal 12 was approved. From maybe 20 participating high schools in the past to nearly 200 this spring, that’s quite a jump.

That’s about 4,000 players getting a look in front of dozens of college coaches. Many of those players may have previously fallen through the cracks of recruiting.

It’s all about opportunity, and these new combines present one heck of an opportunity for area athletes.