by Matt Roberts, Director of Scouting and Athlete Marketing
August 2013 – Voorhees, NJ
Tom Flacco was the star quarterback at Eastern Regional High School. The brother of Baltimore Ravens star quarterback Joe Flacco, quarterbacking was in his blood. The only thing Tom was missing was the ideal height that Division I coaches look for. At only 6’0″ he was a few inches too short, but he had remarkable skills and talent to make up for it. With all of those attributes he still wasn’t getting the attention from the colleges that he deserved and wasn’t getting recruited as a quarterback.
This is his Recruiting Story:
One day in August of Tom’s senior year just as the season was starting I was talking to Tom and asked him how his recruiting was going.
He said it was going okay, but he didn’t sound very excited. Then he told me that he was only being recruited as a walk-on or a safety at a few local Division 1 schools including Temple and the University of Delaware.
I was shocked. I was sure he was a very easy sell to colleges, but to find out someone of his caliber didn’t have a solid offer at QB really did surprise me. So I gave him my card and told him that if he needed any help with recruiting to give me a call. I really didn’t expect a call especially because he was a quarterback already in his senior year and colleges usually have their quarterback commits lined up by July or August at the latest. When I actually got a call needless to say I was surprised.
It was mid-November 2013 and Tom’s father called our offices at ProDynamix. He said that he wanted us to market his son. While I was very eager to do so my first thought was ‘It is SO late’ and I told him that. But there is always a chance it would just take a LOT of hard work, but I’ve been there before with other athletes it’s just much harder with quarterbacks. The only way to get started was to hit the market hard.
First, I had to analyze offers made by teams across the country to quarterbacks who were the same general size and the same general skill set as Tom. That took a very long time, and I was actually surprised at how many 6’0″ quarterbacks were offered by colleges. That led to my next issue. When a college makes an offer, especially at a specialty position like quarterback, you really have to impress them with another athlete for them to want to rescind that offer. And even then it’s highly unlikely that they are going change their minds.
As I always say, the best product in the world is not a good product if no one knows about it. He wanted to go D1. That was his first priority so that’s where we focused our attention. Within about two weeks everybody knew about Tom Flacco. I didn’t get a lot of response at first, nor was I expecting much to be honest. It was a tough sell this late in the game, but persistence always pays off.
I heard some minor rumblings, and then Marshall University contacted me. They were seriously considering Tom and were going to call me back after reviewing his film and comparing it to their other recruit. A few days passed by and I received a call back from the coach who told me that after further consideration they decided to stay with their original recruit. But they were so impressed by Tom the coach told me that he was going to send his film to Perdue, Cincinnati, Tennessee Chattanooga and Tennessee Martin. I had already sent Tom’s information to those schools but a referral from a fellow coach is always a great thing for a player.
Coaches talk and they sometimes share information especially with teams who aren’t direct competition. The recruiting grapevine is very small and word gets around, but it takes time. Recruiting is a exercise in patience. That’s one of my jobs. I keep the parents and the athletes patient while the coaches take their time sorting things out. The saying is that we pray in our time and God answers in his…that same can apply to recruiting. We market in our time, coaches decide in theirs.
Mid-December 2013 Tom’s father called back and I asked him if Tom had been contacted. We provided coaches with Tom’s contact information so sometimes, especially if they are in a rush they go right for to the athlete, or to the athlete’s head coach. Tom’s father said that they were very pleased and had received quite a bit of response. They never told me who but they were happy and we were doing our job so that’s all that mattered.
Tom ended up getting an offer from Western Michigan where he was a backup for 13 games from 2015-16. Tom then transferred to Rutgers University before the 2017 season as a walk-on. He played the scout team that season and received a lot of experience. As they say it’s not the journey it’s the destination and Tom transferred to Towson University the next season.
With his experience and maturity under his belt Tom played as a redshirt junior Tom was named CAA co-offensive player of the week and honorable mention CFPA FCS national player of the week after going 27-of-37 for 320 yards, three touchdowns and Towan interception in a win over #10 ranked Villanova in September 2018.
In November that same year Tom was named a finalist for the STATS Walter Payton Award. At that point Tom ranked third among all FCS players in total offense at 348.0 yards per game, 6th in completions (23.6 per game), 7th in passing (284.0 yards/game) and 12th in completion percentage (63.8%). Tom has produced 3,828 yards from scrimmage for 31 combined touchdowns. Tom ended the year in fifth place for the offensive player of the year honors at FCS. He earned seven first-place votes from sports information directors, media and others. Tom finished the highest among all CAA players.
According to DraftScout.com Tom is ranked 28 out of 100 Quarterbacks eligible for the 2020 NFL Draft. We are going to keep a close eye on Tom and follow his progress. Check back to this article for updates and perhaps some new articles.
Tom has worked very hard and shows our other athletes that if you have the skill, grades and work ethic along with proper athlete marketing resources like we offer with our Titan Scouting service you can get every opportunity to #KnowYourGoal.
– Matt Roberts, Director of Scouting and Athlete Marketing, ProDynamix and Titan Scouting.
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