For some football players, senior year of high school doesn’t really end at graduation anymore. It ends when they leave home early, move onto a college campus, and start football months before most freshmen even get there.
More high school football players are enrolling early now, especially if they are going to FBS schools. Instead of waiting until summer they get to campus in January so they can start workouts, classes, team meetings, and spring practice. It gives them more time to adjust but it also means leaving behind part of a normal high school senior year.
FBS stands for Football Bowl Subdivision, and represents the 138 highest-ranking Division 1 programs.
A recent article from College Football Network said early enrollees can get around six extra months to learn the playbook, train, and get used to college football before fall camp even starts. The article also said that more than 60% of ESPN’s Top 300 recruits in 2024 enrolled early.
Cam O’Hara, a quarterback at Western Kentucky, said one of the biggest changes has been how much more detailed everything is.
“At quarterback, it’s not just going out and throwing it’s learning the offense, the terminology the timing and how everything is supposed to run,” O’Hara said. “I think the biggest adjustment has just been realizing how much more detailed everything is compared to high school.”
Jacob Savage, a linebacker at Indiana, said spring practice has already shown him how competitive a high-level college program can be.
“It’s intense for sure,” Savage said. “Everybody is competing, and there’s not really any room to coast because the level is already so high. You realize pretty fast that you have to earn everything.”
Evan Hampton, a running back at Vanderbilt, said it got obvious pretty quickly that college football is a completely different environment.
“Honestly probably the first couple workouts and just seeing how locked in everybody was” Hampton said. “In high school football is serious but when you get here, you can tell right away that this is everybody’s whole life.”
O’Hara, Savage, and Hampton all attended attended Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky.
Hampton also said running back at the college level is more complicated than most people think.
“A lot of people just think running back is carrying the ball but there’s way more to it than that” Hampton said. “You have to know protections, reads, where you’re supposed to be and all the little details that keep the offense moving.”
For players like O’Hara, Savage, and Hampton, early enrollment gives them a head start. But it also shows how fast the jump from high school football to college football really is.
