I'm by no means an expert and may be a bit bias, but I work at Hudl and have conversations on the regular with coaches and club directors looking to enhance their college recruiting programs. If a coach cares about the program, then he/she wants to see the players be successful and ultimately get recruited (alongside maybe a state title
).
I don't think it could hurt having your son set up a meeting with the coach. Are coaches busy? Yes. Will he be irritated if a freshman already wants to talk college? Maybe. But if he cares about the team and cares about the players, then he should give your son 15 minutes to discuss his goals. If he refuses or doesn't take him seriously, then maybe he's not the type of person your son should be playing for.
If the school is filming games and using Hudl (which I'm sure they are), make sure your son is staying proactive on watching game film regularly and ultimately building his profile with quality highlights that he can grow as he progresses through high school. Starting this process earlier is going to ensure that your son has a strong resume and plenty of game film for a college coach to review when it's ultimately time to start. Unless your son ends up being a Top 200 recruit, a college coach is going to want to see more than 3 highlights from his junior year.
Training camps are a great way to showcase players' skills and abilities and may help your son get on a college coach's radar early on. But these can be expensive and competition is going to be fierce so it's important to set realistic expectations for these and ensure that they're going to be worth attending. Coaches in the past have told me how they've had athletes get recruited without attending a single camp or showcase so by no means are these always necessary.
Feel free to ask me anything else about this process and anything more specific!
T&Gs