Football recruiting camps are one of the biggest expenses families face during the process — and one of the easiest to waste money on. A single prospect day runs $150–$300. A mega camp weekend can hit $400–$600 once you factor travel and lodging. Most families attend four to eight camps per year, putting annual spend in the $1,500–$3,000 range before their son has a single offer. The problem isn't spending on camps. The problem is spending on the wrong ones. Football's camp ecosystem is more stratified than most sports, with distinct formats that serve different purposes and attract different levels of coaching staff. Understanding those differences is how you stop burning money. For a broader framework that applies across all sports, see our guide on whether college recruiting camps are worth it.
Football families encounter four main camp formats. Each one serves a different function in the recruiting process, and confusing them is expensive.
| Event type | Run by | Cost | What happens | Recruiting value |
|---|
| Mega camp | Nike, Under Armour, or hosted by a major program inviting outside staffs | $200–$400 | Large-scale event with multiple college coaching staffs evaluating hundreds of athletes across positions | High exposure volume. Multiple staffs see your athlete in one trip. Best for prospects who already have measurables and film that pop. |
| Prospect day | A single college program, on their campus | $150–$300 | Position-specific drills and one-on-ones run by that program's coaching staff | Direct evaluation by the staff that controls offers. Highest value when the position coach has already communicated with your athlete. |
| Combine | Third-party or regional organizer | $100–$250 | Athletic testing — 40-yard dash, shuttle, vertical, broad jump, position agility drills | Produces verified measurables for your athlete's profile. Less about film evaluation, more about physical benchmarking. |
| Elite / invite-only camp | Program or national organizer (e.g., Rivals, 247Sports) | Free or subsidized | Curated group of top prospects competing in front of national evaluators and college staffs | Extremely high — but you don't choose to attend these. You get selected. If your son receives a legitimate invite, he goes. |
Prospect days are the workhorse of football recruiting. Your son works directly with the position coach who would recruit and develop him. A strong showing at a prospect day can accelerate a recruitment from interest to offer faster than any other format.
Mega camps offer volume. Multiple staffs in one location means your athlete can get seen by eight to ten programs in a single day. The tradeoff is less individual attention from any single staff.
Combines are useful for building a verified athletic profile, but they rarely lead directly to offers. Think of them as resume-builders — the numbers go on your son's recruiting profile and give coaches data points to pair with film.
Elite camps aren't a decision — they're a signal. If your son is invited, the recruiting world already knows who he is.
Which camps coaches actually use to recruit
Not every camp format matters equally at every level. The division your athlete is targeting determines which events are worth the investment.
Power Four FBS staffs recruit primarily from their own prospect days and from mega camps where they send position coaches. These programs have the budget and visibility to attract talent to campus. If a Power Four position coach invites your son to a prospect day, that camp is the highest-value event on his schedule. At the FBS level, programs have 85 head-count scholarships — each one is a full ride, and coaches are deliberate about who they evaluate in person.
FCS programs rely more heavily on prospect days and regional combines. FCS staffs have smaller recruiting budgets and can't always send coaches to mega camps. Their 63 equivalency scholarships mean they're splitting aid across more athletes, so they need to see your son compete in person before committing limited dollars. Prospect days at FCS programs your athlete is targeting often have better athlete-to-coach ratios and more direct evaluation time than FBS mega camps.
D2 coaches use a mix of their own camps and regional events. Like FCS, D2 operates on equivalency scholarships and tighter travel budgets. A D2 prospect day might only draw 40–60 athletes, which means more reps and more face time with the staff.
D3 programs recruit almost exclusively through their own camps. There are no athletic scholarships at D3, but roster spots and merit aid packages are real. D3 coaches use their camps to evaluate fit — both athletic and academic — and the evaluation is often more holistic than at other levels.
Before you register and book hotels, run every camp through these five questions:
Has the position coach communicated directly with your athlete?
A personal email or DM referencing your son's film, a specific game, or his measurables is recruiting interest. A mass camp invitation that went to every name on a purchased list is marketing. Camps where the position coach has already engaged with your athlete go to the top of the list. Everything else competes for leftover budget.
Does the program have roster needs at your son's position and class year?
Check the roster. Count starters and backups at his position. Look at the recruiting class ahead of him. If they signed three offensive linemen last cycle and have two more committed, their prospect day is a revenue event for O-linemen — not a recruiting event.
What's the player-to-coach ratio at your son's position group?
A prospect day with 15 defensive backs and two DB coaches gives each athlete meaningful reps and evaluation time. A camp with 60 DBs and one graduate assistant running drills is a waste of a weekend. Ask the number before you register.
Is the camp structured around live competition or just drills?
One-on-ones and scrimmage situations reveal what coaches need to see — how your son competes, not just how he looks in a drill line. Camps built entirely around agility stations and non-contact drills limit what a coach can evaluate.
Has your high school coach been contacted?
College coaches who are genuinely recruiting your son will reach out to his high school coach for a character and coachability reference. If the college staff has contacted his coach, attending their camp is a natural next step. If there's been zero contact with the high school, the camp invitation is likely just a numbers game.
The cost math matters. If your family is spending $2,500 on camps this year, that's five to eight events. Three or four targeted prospect days at programs with real interest will outperform eight random mega camp registrations every time.
Camp performance doesn't exist in a vacuum. Coaches use it to validate or contradict what they've seen on your son's Hudl film. What they're looking for is position-specific.
Quarterbacks
Arm talent is the baseline — coaches already know the arm from film. In person, they're watching pocket presence under pressure, ability to read progressions live, ball placement to multiple levels, and how quickly your son processes post-snap. A camp won't teach these things, but it will expose whether the film is telling the full story.
Offensive linemen
Footwork in pass sets, hand placement and timing at the point of attack, pad level through contact, and the ability to mirror speed rushers laterally. OL evaluation at camps is one of the most reliable position groups because the one-on-one format mirrors game situations closely.
Wide receivers and defensive backs
Route running precision and tempo changes for receivers. Hip fluidity, transition speed, and ball skills in coverage for DBs. The WR-DB one-on-one is the signature camp drill in football because it isolates exactly what coaches need to see from both positions simultaneously.
Linebackers
Change-of-direction explosiveness, ability to open hips and cover in space, instincts in scrimmage reads, and physicality at the point of attack. Linebacker evaluation at camps tends to favor athletes who play fast and physical — the intangibles translate live in ways that film sometimes can't capture.
Defensive linemen
First-step quickness, hand usage and counter moves, motor and effort through the whistle, and the ability to stack and shed blocks. DL coaches want to see if your son's burst off the ball in person matches what they see on film.
In every position group, coaches are cross-referencing what they see at camp with what's on film. A camp performance that confirms strong film accelerates a recruitment. A camp performance that contradicts good film raises red flags.
After the camp: follow-up that keeps the conversation alive
The camp itself is one event. What happens in the days and weeks after determines whether it leads anywhere.
Within 48 hours, your son should email the position coach directly. Not admissions, not the recruiting coordinator — the position coach who worked with him at camp. Reference specific feedback or a particular drill. Mention something the coach said during the session. This shows your son was paying attention and is genuinely interested, not just going through the motions. For exactly how to structure that email, see our guide on how to email a football college coach.
Include an updated Hudl link. If your son has new film since the last contact, this gives the coach a reason to re-engage with his evaluation.
Have the high school coach follow up with a call. A college coach hearing from both the athlete and the high school coach within the same week signals that this is a serious, organized recruitment — not a one-off camp appearance.
After the initial follow-up, maintain contact every two to three weeks, but only when you have something new to share — game film, updated stats, an academic milestone, another camp result. Empty check-in emails get ignored.
What silence means. If two follow-ups go unanswered, the program has likely moved on from your son at this time. That's not a reason to stop recruiting — it's a reason to redirect energy toward programs that are responding. Silence after a camp is information. Use it.
What a response means. Any reply from a position coach — even a brief one — is worth pursuing. Coaches are managing hundreds of recruits. A response means your son is still on the board. Keep the conversation alive.
The bottom line
Football recruiting camps work when they're targeted. A prospect day at a program where the position coach knows your son's name and has a roster need is one of the most efficient steps in the entire recruiting process. A $400 mega camp registration at an event where no one is expecting your athlete is an expensive Saturday.
Build your camp schedule around real interest from real coaches at programs that fit. Use verified film as the foundation, camps as the in-person validation, and direct communication with coaches as the thread that ties it all together. For a full picture of how camps fit into the football recruiting process, start there. And for the general framework on evaluating any recruiting camp investment, revisit our guide on whether college recruiting camps are worth it.