If you're a fan of college football, you spend your New Year's weekend of 2010 following the drama around two high-level college coaches, Florida's Urban Meyer and Texas Tech's Mike Leach.

And in the midst of heart palpitations, storage sheds and round-the-clock ESPN coverage, there were recruiting lessons that every coach should learn.

The main lesson is this: Today's generation of recruits are focused on the personality, resume and persona far more than past generations.  Twenty years ago, recruits were picking the college brand.  Today, more often than not, they are signing-on with the coach that they see as the "face" of that college brand. 

It's been a fascinating transition, one made easier thanks to ESPN and the proliferation of Internet bloggers who focus on personalities in college sports just as much as they focus on the results of the teams they are coaching.

Meyer and Leach each had equal parts drama, sadness and intrigue swirling around their respective stories.  The subtext of the story was being played-out in the trenches of the recruiting war: Prospects were rumored to be de-committing to schools, then re-committing...and coaches from competing programs were scrambling to spin each situation to their favor with recruits still on the fence.

Why?  Because who the coach was going to be affected their opinion of the program and the school, and they were willing to pass-up whatever the school's benefits were in favor of the next coach on their list who had forged a good relationship during the recruiting process.

So, where does all of this leave you?

First, here are three big truths about how today's prospects - the kid you're recruiting right now, Coach - arrive at their final decision during the recruiting process:

1. Our national studies show that the two most influencial determining factors in choosing a school that they deem to be the "right fit" for them are 1) what a coach tells them over the phone, and 2) what a coach tells them in person.  In other words, they will be drawn or repelled from your program largely due to how you interact with them during the first phases of the recruiting process.
2. The same study shows that top national prospects are drawn to a coach far more than they are drawn to a university.  In other words, the "logic" behind a school offering a top ranked business program or outstanding internship opportunities take a back seat to how those same highly regarded recruits feel about the relationship with the coach.
3. Prospects are constantly on the look-out for ways to get to know the real person behind the coaching mask.  When we conduct focus groups with student-athletes at colleges around the country as a part of the On-Campus Workshops that we offer athletic departments, they recount their visits to colleges that were recruiting them and reveal to us that one of the first priorities when talking with the team at those schools was to find out "what the coach really was like at practice" and "what those players wish they knew about him or her before they signed with the school." 

There are always exceptions to these recruiting rules, of course, but the three facts I outlined above should be taken seriously by today's college recruiter.

With that in mind, here are some practical ways to make sure your next recruiting campaign embraces these facts of life on the recruiting trail:

• If you're a coach at a "big brand" school and you've demonstrated a history of success, you need to emphasize yourself in your recruiting materials.  That doesn't mean you don't talk about the school's benefits, but the main message needs to be about how you are going to help them have a better career with you than with your competition.
• If you're a coach that regularly competes in a "big brand" conference, but consider yourself a lower-tier program that won't generate the same buzz that your competitor does, you will need to prove to them that the opportunity with you and your program is to their advantage vs. opting for a traditional power.  The two important elements of this strategy are coming up with a compelling story, but even more importantly telling the story in a way that gets them to sign-on with you.  Wonder how coaches from mediocre colleges in your sport somehow get amazing talent to come and play for them?  It's all about their story, how they tell it, and making sure it includes a compelling reason for that recruit to commit.
• Take a few existing recruiting letters or emails that you've recently sent to your recruits.  How many of them talk about you and your vision along with selling the school and your program?  I like to have coaches take a colored marker and highlight phrases or main ideas that center around you.  Do that test with your messages...were you able to mark anything?  If not, you're bypassing one of the main motivators for today's recruit and how they make their decision.
• Does the head coach matter?  Yes, but the relationship between prospect and assistant coach is vital, too.  Depending on the sport, the head coach's involvement in the recruiting process should be consistent and personalized as much as possible.  Recruits are looking for reasons to sweat allegiance to a particular coach and program...so give them one with your attention to them as a head coach. 

More and more, you read comments from recruits that sign with a school that center around their relationship with the coach at that school.  Coaches who can create great relationships early on and keep building on it throughout the recruiting process stand an excellent chance to swaying really good recruits away from programs that might appear to be better on paper.

Be one of those coaches.