Today's interviewee is David Ewalt, founder of Recruit Georgia, an NCAA-compliant scouting service that evaluates, promotes and guides college football prospects in the state. Ewalt started the business as a Twitter site in 2014. It now has more than 44,000 followers.
David Ewalt, founder of Recruit Georgia
1. What's your background, and what prompted you to start Recruit Georgia? "I graduated from Georgia State in 2013 with a business management degree and shortly after was hired by a local digital marketing company. I had no experience working on Twitter prior to being hired, so I created @RecruitGeorgia in order to learn about the platform prior to my first day on the job. The very concept for the company was one that I had thought of dating back to high school, and in all honesty, it was the perfect storm timing-wise. Athletes had really just started to use Twitter for recruiting purposes, and my page could help connect those players with college football coaches seamlessly. Prior to all of that, I was a complete outsider to the college recruiting world with no contacts with high school or college coaches. The first few years felt more like an internship where I came home from work every night and just tried to help with recruiting exposure when I could. All of that snowballed. More and more college coaches began to follow, and you could see the results first-hand. It all continued to build to what you see now daily on my Twitter page and website (recruitgeorgia.com). Back in 2017, my company was cleared as an NCAA-compliant scouting service, and college programs from FBS to D-III could purchase premium data throughout the year, but the hallmark of my company is the free public profiles on the website, which has helped thousands of football players with college recruiting exposure."
2. What's the single best advice that you could give to a college prospect and his family that they probably don't already know? "You can promote yourself and run your own recruitment without paying some organization to do it. There are a lot of companies that try to sell athletes and parents on buying their exposure program preying on recruiting anxieties. They get a profile that is updated annually and a scouting report from some ex-athlete living in California. Promises are made, and maybe they know a handful of college coaches, or smaller schools use their platform even, so they can help expedite the recruiting process to some extent, but in this era of recruiting, you can control so much. Just by having a Twitter page that clearly states your name and a Hudl profile with current contact/athletic information while being active on Twitter is huge. Announcing your offers and visits and posting weekly individual film can make a difference with exposure. Plus, tagging @RecruitGeorgia is a great way to increase your exposure, too, but that's up to the athlete and how they want to use my service, if at all, but definitely opens the door for thousands of college coaches to potentially see."
3. What is the most fun or rewarding part about running RecruitGeorgia? "The whole recruiting process is very intriguing, and it is rewarding to see an athlete sign their letter of intent, but I definitely like the scouting aspect of my job the most. In fact, I would like to eventually expand into basketball and maybe other sports too down the road, but at the end of the day, I like to watch film and write scouting reports. Each year after national signing day in February, I go back and look at my old scouting reports, how accurate they were and where I can improve. It is all a learning experience, and you have to constantly adapt to stay ahead of the current trends in the sport."
4. Which Georgia player do you feel is the most underrated or under-recruited right now? "Ty French, a senior outside linebacker out of Colquitt County, is my biggest sleeper in the state. The 6-foot-3 defender is a prototypical modern-day OLB capable of busting up screen passes on the perimeter but also has the physicality and toughness to have an impact against the run. He shows quick enough hips to flip over and stay stride for stride with tight ends and running backs in man coverage but also the potential to be an exceptional pass rusher when blitzed, too. French is a Power 5-caliber football player but currently holds offers from UAB and UT-Chattanooga. Whoever ends up with him is getting an all-conference type of player."
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