Premium Caple Content: CP before leaving for Hawaii

(Did you take these side trips before when playing at Hawaii?) “Yes. Absolutely. We wouldn’t go every time but we’d go maybe every other time to make sure everyone in that cycle of the roster would get a chance to see it. When we played Virginia Tech back in Washington D.C., we went by and took a look at the White House, then we went and saw all the war memorials. It’s always interesting because those players want nothing to do with that. All they want is to go play ball. I get it. Very focused. But after we do those things, they’re very appreciative, and I think they get it. I think they see the bigger picture. So it’s something that’s important to us as a staff.”

(Do you learn more about them on those trips?) “I don’t see it so much as us learning about them. I just think it’s important. Any time we can, outside of football, give them something that I think is important in terms of the big picture, we’re going to do.”

(On philosophy of not allowing committed recruits to take official visits elsewhere) “We don’t want a kid to commit to us unless they’re solid in the recruiting process, that they’ve looked around, that they’ve really decided, ‘hey, I can figure this thing out early and this is where I do want to go.’ Because it can be just nerve-racking, and then all these coaches continually pound on these guys, and there’s a lot of good places out there. And it just makes it confusing for them. I’m thinking, I’m an 18-year-old kid, or 17, sometimes these guys are 16, and you’ve got these professional, in some cases, used-car salesmen banging on them month after month. It gets confusing. It can be very anxiety-provoking, not only for the kid but for the family, and it’s hard. So they need to go through that. When they want to put an end to the recruiting process and commit, that changes our recruiting, and we’re good to take that commitment. But they need to understand it’s a two-way street.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb5NLazAOhI