The ever-competitive college football recruiting landscape is about to get smarter … or at least, that’s Benjamin Weiss’ hope.
A current senior at Northwestern University and one of four co-founders of Zcruit, Weiss and his colleagues are taking their data-driven startup and helping schools assess how likely a recruit is to commit to their university.
“We’re helping programs build better quality recruiting classes based off the software we’re providing and helping them connect with the right players at their school at the earliest possible time,” said Weiss, who plans to go full-time with Zcruit following graduation next June.
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As opposed to casting a wide net around hundreds or even thousands of potential recruits, Zcruit now gives schools the ability to narrow their search through smarter and more predictive analysis. With 10,000 high school players in its database, Zcruit works with schools’ recruiting offices, like Northwestern and two other undisclosed universities, to create a custom algorithm which takes into account various factors that could influence a player’s likelihood of committing.
The software then churns out a “Z-Score” for each individual, essentially determining how likely it will be that a certain prospect commits to a program.
Additionally, it provides athletic programs the back-end software to track prospects through more reliable mediums versus just scouring social media platforms such as Twitter and following recruits on Rivals.com, ESPN, 247Sports.com and other recruiting sites. When schools decide to follow a high school player, they can receive notifications when he receives offers from other schools and how that will impact his likelihood of committing.
The software, which is still in Beta testing and currently licensed to schools for $10,000, recently helped Northwestern predict with 94 percent accuracy who would commit to its football program.
“With Zcruit, we’re optimizing the recruiting process, saving schools time and money recruiting and making the entire process more efficient for the schools,” Weiss said.
According to Weiss, a full rollout of Zcruit is expected for late next spring or early summer as the company looks to begin dozens of conversations with other college football programs.
To date, it has received roughly $17,000 between pitch competitions and grant money from Northwestern.