Critical summer camp season approaching for WVU
Summer camp season is on the horizon and it’s a critical time for the West Virginia football program.
Each year the football program welcomes a large number of potential prospects to Morgantown for a series of summer camp stops which allows for a very valuable element of the process.
That being the opportunity to college coaches to evaluate prospects in person.
Something that isn’t as accessible as you’d believe.
“There is a heavy limitation on how much you can actually see the kids play football and while the camps aren’t truly a game you can see them move around and be able to coach them from your own coaches’ perspective,” director of player personnel Ryan Dorchester said.
That means college programs can do their own tests to measure prospects for themselves to see how they stand from an athletic aspect as well how receptive prospects are to each school’s brand of coaching. It also allows the coaches to see how competitive players are in a camp setting.
And that is an important element to the process as well. Would you buy a car without a test drive? Well some of the camping experience helps address that.
“If they take to coaching and if they’re paying attention,” Dorchester said. “There are guys that have gone up and down on our board because of it.”
The camp settings afford prospects the chance to work with West Virginia coaches while also introducing them to the program by letting them see the facilities and getting to know more about it.
West Virginia is set to host one-day prospect camps June 4, June 11, June 16, June 18, June 21, July 27 and July 28 this coming summer. Looking at those dates that is three Monday camps, a Thursday camp, the Friday camp in July and a pair of Saturday camps.
Some of that is by trial and error, as West Virginia studied the data from camp participants last year to try to take advantage of the days that had a higher turnout. Surprisingly Monday and Thursday were big dates for the attendance last year so the program went back to the well for this summer.
“You want to try to make the camps accessible to prospects but also you want to make sure you’re able to actually get guys here,” Dorchester said.
Part of those attendance numbers are related to the fact that many college programs hold their camps on Saturdays in June and July which increases the level of competition in getting kids there. This way prospects could possibly go on vacation or even camp at some places over the weekend and then hit West Virginia on the way back for the Monday slate.
“There is a tug-of-war effect there,” Dorchester said.
The last component to the camp season at West Virginia is the annually 7-on-7 passing tournament in Morgantown which brings a large number of teams and prospects to campus.
That is set for June 22-23 this year and will bring entire high school teams to campus to compete in the tournament, while the coaching staff also will hold a big-man camp for those linemen that want to participate.
There is a coaching element to the camp session in the 7-on-7 as players will be evaluated and the big man event opens up another opportunity to work with coaches one-on-one as well.
“It puts the high schools in competitive situations and gets a ton of people on campus,” he said.
The cost of the one-day camp events is $50 per camper and registration will begin 9 a.m. with the event set to start around 10 a.m. lasting until 1 p.m. Registration is set for the Indoor facility, while the actual camps will unfold on the practice fields behind it.
For more information visit: http://wvufootballcamps.com
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