ASU is certainly not alone in navigating a new landscape of a recruiting process, yet recruiting coordinator Antonio Pierce knows the Sun Devils are well equipped to deal with this virtual reality.
Hod Rabino: Has the virtual recruiting process worked to ASU’s advantage?
Antonio Pierce: “Yes. It helps us because nobody gets to go to a campus in-person. So, it’s all about presentation and I don’t think you can find a better group of guys, obviously from some of our backgrounds with TV and media that know how to put together a better presentation.
“So, in this virtual world, it’s about how you present it and how you keep people engaged for hours or 30 minutes at a time. That’s challenging, especially when everybody’s trying to pull at the same kids. But for us, it’s business as usual, to be honest. We’ve had a lot of virtual tours, a lot of virtual meetings with recruits. They like to do that a little bit more because we get to show them the screen. We can share things with them that you couldn’t do on facetime, and that you couldn’t do even in-person, to be honest, other than having them on campus. So, our people are doing great stuff.
“Now, there’s going to be a decommitment stage. We know that there’s going to be a fire exit emergency coming up soon or whenever everything gets open. And we’ll prepare for that as well. So where are the right guys? And I think you read articles and you read things about the players you’re recruiting and you hear what they say and our message is resonating to them.”
Hod Rabino: Without getting into specifics of course, are you pleased with the school’s recruiting efforts in the Midwest and Southeast?
Antonio Pierce: “Yes, without a question. Thanks to you, you guys (writers for recruiting websites) have done a great job of getting articles written about those prospects. And what you're seeing now is a team that for two years, really put an emphasis on California and the West Coast, and today saying ‘okay, we’re going to recruit nationally at certain positions.’ And to be in the top-10, top-seven, top-five with some of the schools that we're at. People see our name right next to those other programs and say ‘wow, how is that program (ASU) there?’ And again, it's about getting our name out there.
“I said we as only going to get four to eight kids not from the West Coast and I was wrong. We’ll probably be anywhere from 10 to 14, to be honest. That’s not going to be just (offensive and defensive) linemen, that’s going to be at other positions as well. It's just one of those years where I think we made a strong enough push in December and January and we've done a good enough job with the virtual world of recruiting, that we've gained enough interest in these players who are going to make a big impact for the future of our program.”
Hod Rabino: Have you noticed a higher number of recruits committing early because they feel their senior seasons being in doubt due to the Coronavirus?
Antonio Pierce: “Everybody's trying to lock in a spot, and that's why you got to be careful in this day with recruiting. It’s never final until they sign. That's why you just keep going about your business. You have a plan. You have the group of guys that you really, really, really want. And you have the ones you’ve got to be careful with. That’s why you need to be smart and cool. It’s being strategic. It’s playing chess, not checkers.
“If we’re smart about it, if we handle our business and we do our due diligence, we’ll recruit the right guys. I don’t think we’re being catfished by anybody so far. We just got to do a good job of just really just dialing into the mom and dad, the support system of those student-athletes to get a clearer and better picture.”
Hod Rabino: How important is to have such a media personality such as Herm Edwards on these Zoom calls to recruits?
Antonio Pierce: “There’s no script. When coach Edwards comes on, there’s no script. Throw the script out the window. You don’t know what’s about to happen. Everybody has to be on their toes, and that’s what makes it so authentic and real. There’s no written down dialogue of how we’re going to speak to a recruit or recruit them.
“Obviously, we have our mantra and we go about it that way. But coach Edwards does a great job of running the show and I take the baton from there and our staff does a great job overall. Just being genuine, man. Just be yourself. At the end of the day, when you’re doing recruiting like we’re doing now…recruits just need real coaches. It’s like TV. You can see good acting and bad acting on TV or when you watch a movie. Well, you can see fake coaching, fake recruiting and real recruiting and a real person on the other end.”
Hod Rabino: Has your recruiting playbook evolved from March to May?
Antonio Pierce: “Yeah. Because first, you got our guy Radmen (Niven, ASU’s Recruiting Creative Designer) involved with our graphics program and get putting out pictures, a couple of videos here and there. And then really, the demand came on with the prospects and their parents: ‘I want to see the campus. I want to see the classes. I want to see how you run your academics. I want to see your support staff’ so here we go. And you just adjust and I think we’ve done a good enough job and we’ve been doing it now for about two and a half weeks and putting that together and showing that to quite a few prospects, really close to 100 prospects who have seen our campus from afar.
“I think we come away with at least a good impression. And we keep telling them, ‘that’s only a sneak peek of what it’s like. You still have to come on campus.’ That still works that way. And again, there are some guys who are committing across the country even to our program that have not seen it in person but again, how are you presenting it. I know how we’re going to present it well, and I feel comfortable that we’re doing a good enough of a job painting a real picture of what it’s really like and you see that through our coaches on Twitter, and how active they’ve been with posting certain graphics and videos.”
Hod Rabino: I’m obviously saying this jokingly, but will it be boring for recruits to come on campus now that they’ve seen it virtually?
Antonio Pierce: “So now you have to change that game up, right? So, it just keeps adjusting. It’s like the weather. The weatherman every day, he changes the weather forecast, right? So, we just got to be on our toes and you’re never going to have one option. You better be able to adjust and adapt in the recruiting world. If you can’t, you get eaten up by the other programs and that’s what happens in recruiting.”
Hod Rabino: As you go through this creative and virtual recruiting approach, how do you deal with an uncertain future not knowing yet if there will be a football season this year?
Antonio Pierce: “We rely on the government, the President of the United States and all the professionals, and the health departments to make those decisions. All we can do is be ready to handle our part as far as being prepared. And I think as a coach, that’s what you always work on, to be prepared. Being ready for any circumstance. You know you have a halftime adjustment to make and that’s it.
“You try not to predict too much. You try to stay out of that world and just control what you can control.”
Click here for the first part of our conversation regarding the linebacker position and the state of the defense going into 2020.
Join us on our premium message board, the Devils’ Huddle, to discuss this article and other ASU football and recruiting topics. Not a member yet? Sign up today here and join your fellow Sun Devil fans!
Jesse Morrison contributed to this article
