The Aggie coaches are familiar with just about all the high school aged girls in DFW who would be a candidate for the team. They have seen all of the ECNL teams play, multiple times. Probably dozens of times for the top teams in each age group.

It is exceedingly rare (as in only happened 2-3 times to my knowledge in the past 5 years) that an ECRL player will be of the standard required to be an impact player in the SEC. Even if they are talented, the speed of play and quality of competition simply isn't high enough to properly develop to the point where a player is ready to contribute at a high collegiate level.

Thus it is very rare that you will find a P4 staff like A&M out watching ECRL games as it's very unlikely to be a good use of their limited time and resources.

If your niece is moving to an ECNL team this spring, and will be a sophomore or junior, then she will be seen by hundreds of college coaches at the upcoming ECNL Texas event, and almost certainly A&M will attend a game there or this spring. Watching and recruiting that level of team is a generally a good use of their time and resources.

For better or worse, that's the reality of the current soccer landscape.

As has been said coaches attend showcases with a list of kids they're there to evaluate. Unless top top talent it's because the player has reached out by email with a highlight film that caught their attention. Some are good enough to catch every coaches attention but those players are few or they're in a showcase in a region that hasn't had exposure to the kid. For example, a Texas kid may attend a showcase in Florida or North Carolina and suddenly get interest from east coast schools that previously didn't know of her. If I'm not mistaken, only one RL kid in the whole 26 class made it to P4 and she plays for Solar and is at Texas Tech. It's not likely a RL sophomore is on any P4 radars so it's good she's moving up to NL.

My daughter is a junior GA player and man recruiting is a beat down in this sport. We have a couple friends who have had daughters commit D1 in swimming over the last two years and I am so jealous. You just swim a time and that's it! No highlight reels, no ID Camps or showcases. Lay down a time and send some emails.

Soccer is particularly hard because it is arguably the least stat driven sport. It is one where you have to actually watch the people play to see how they influence the game. My daughter would love out of state but it is VERY hard to do that without $$$. The GA summer and winter showcase provide good exposure but as a middle class family we can't just jet off to every ID camp. That adds up QUICKLY.

In the Houston area, people like www.collegesocceridentification.com/ put on good ID camps. We just did one of theirs yesterday and there were about 12-15 schools there in a variety of divisions.

The best advice we got in recent months that was actually useful. SCHEDULE YOUR EMAILS! The U of H coach came and talked to our team and he said (paraphrasing) "All of you do the same thing. You get home from club or school, eat dinner, take a shower, do homework, and then at the end of the night decide to knock out some emails at like 10:30, 11:00 or later. By the time I get into the office after morning practice I have 150 emails and I get through MAYBE half of them. Schedule you email to send at 9:00 AM the next day so it is at the top of the pile when I get to my desk."

Since then we've noticed a decent increase in responses (generic or not). It's one of the top pieces I would pass on to younger girls and something I wish we had done earlier

Other than that, man it's a very frustrating journey. You really have no way to know if you email just went unseen or if they saw it and are not interested. We have gotten VERY few (I mean like maybe 2-3) peoples say no in any form. She dreams of D1 but realistically she would be at a school whose RPI is in the bottom half or bottom third and for those it is a waiting game. With the two transfer portal windows and increased international game it is getting harder and harder to go D1 and the lower schools are the last to eat, so through junior year you see the power 4 immediately lock down some recruits, then people who didn't make those cuts commit to mid majors, and on and on. A friend of ours went to the UNT camp this weekend and they said they haven't even started 2027 recruiting. Contrast that with some programs who already have 6-7+ recruits.

I used to stress about it but I am now peaceful in knowing she will find her fit. She's has D2 interest and talked to some high academic D3s so she already has some options. But of course we all want to give our girls the world and hope they get their dreams.

Yall are lucky. You have girls. You should try soccer recruiting with a boy.

It was brutal. Self recruiting doesn't even begin to describe the landscape. And in this part of the country with no D1? Yeah, you learned the NAIA ropes fast.

12-14 years ago game tapes were like 480i if you were lucky, so basicallly everything was a blur. Mine was a GK, so we were clamping GoPros to the inside back posts of goals hoping to get something.

We were all cutting video and burning it to CDs to send out.

Fortunately my kids priorities are 1) does the school offer what I want to study 2) would I go there if soccer wasn't an option 3) can I play soccer there. She doesn't care about D1, D2 etc. she just wants to continue playing after HS. She also knows that just like there is overlap in the Alphabet soup that is youth soccer, there is overlap in collegiate soccer. She has visited D2 schools with better facilities than some D1 schools and knows that there are D2 schools that would beat some D1 schools.