September 29, 2025 ⢠11 mins
đď¸ Challenging the Status Quo in College Recruiting with Dr. John ComerfordÂ
What does true leadership in college recruiting look like? In Part 2 of Matt Rogersâ conversation with Dr. John Comerford, President of Otterbein University, the focus shifts from affordability to athletics.
Dr. Comerford shares his vision for recruiting with clarity and convictionâsetting expectations for his coaches to recruit with integrity, to look beyond athletic talent, and to bring in students who will thrive in the classroom, in competition, and in life. He isnât afraid to go against the norm or push back on the status quo if it means fighting for his community, supporting his coaches, and helping families find a better path to college.
For parents, student-athletes, and coaches alike, this episode offers a powerful look at what real leadership in college athletics should be.
đ For more resources on recruiting, coaching, and leadership, visit CoachMattRogers.com
.
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome back to The SignificantRecruiting Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's episode is part two ofmy conversation with Dr.
John Erford, president ofOtterbein University in
Westerville, Ohio.
In part one, he challenged us torethink everything we believe
about the cost of college.
In part two, we turn to theworld of college athletics,
(00:31):
specifically recruiting and whathe expects from his coaches.
What struck me most in thisconversation is how Dr.
Erford approaches recruitingwith the same conviction he
brings to higher education.
He believes recruiting should berooted in honesty, integrity,
and alignment with the missionof the institution.
He sets clear expectations forhis coaches to recruit, not just
(00:55):
talented athletes, but the rightpeople, students of character
who will exceed in theclassroom, in competition and in
the community for parents,student athletes, and coaches
alike.
This is an eye-openingdiscussion on what leadership at
the very top expects when itcomes to the recruiting process.
Before we dive in, make sureyou've subscribed to our weekly
(01:15):
newsletter so you never miss anycontent, podcasts, blogs, and
recruiting tips that can helpyour family or your program.
You can sign up and find all mybooks, classes and
resources@coachmattrogers.com.
Now let's get to it.
Here's part two of myconversation with Dr.
John Erford.
John, so great to see you again.
(01:37):
This is what we call theSignificant recruiting podcast,
so it's a little different thanwhat we did before.
And I know as the president,you're not out there necessarily
doing a lot of recruiting, eventhough you're recruiting alumni
and benefactors and things likethat.
So you are a big time recruiter,maybe the most important
recruiter on your campus.
Do any of your coaches use youfor recruiting?
(01:57):
Yeah, so we do visit days.
Yeah.
And several coaches, not all thecoaches have me come in and do a
little welcome at a visit day.
I also go out of my way.
Here's a little secret, and Ithink every CA campus has a
version of this.
You can tell a campus tour atOtterbine because the visiting
student is carrying a red bag.
We give'em a red bag as soon asthey get to campus and you watch
for red bags on campus.
(02:18):
I love that.
That's so smart.
I know, right?
So I beeline over anytime I seea a red bag, vater, I know the
coaches.
And so I can see a coach iswalking somebody around, right?
And so I always walk up, meetthe student, always introduce
myself to the parents.
But I always try to engage thestudent in conversation.
And then what I know ishappening in these, whether
(02:38):
they're athletes or not, when Ido that with a tour group or do
that on a visit day, then thecoach or the tour guide uses
that as an example of our greatcommunity here.
See, even the president can walkup and say hi to you and
whatever.
That's what INE is.
I become the symbol of that.
Yeah.
And yeah I love to be engaged init.
That's great.
When you talk about numbers withyour athletic director, and I'm
(03:01):
sure you have regularconversations with your ad or
whoever your VP is overseeingthat, what do roster sizes mean
to you in terms of max and min?
We, we have the full spectrum inour country.
We have coaches, we havepresidents that say, we're gonna
milk athletics for all we'vegot.
We're gonna, we're gonna fillbeds, and if we have to have 40
(03:21):
kids on a basketball roster,we're gonna do it.
And then we have presidents tosay, I want healthy rosters.
I want coaches to figure outwhat they need to be healthy and
successful.
Where do you stand with that?
So I want a positive studentexperience.
And so if you get too big andyou don't adequately resource
(03:44):
it, like with the JV program andassistant coaches and whatever
else to give a positive studentathlete experience, you're gonna
end up with a retention problemand eventually a reputational
problem in that program.
Yeah.
And so you might have the shortterm boost of, we got 10 more
students this last fall.
But then a year later when theyhaven't had a good experience,
they haven't had any playingtime, they haven't any attention
(04:04):
from the coach.
They haven't had a JV game toplay.
They're gonna leave.
Yeah.
And that's gonna be bad for yourschool and bad for your program
in the long term.
So it's finding that sweet spot.
The other thing I would throwout is in terms of roster sizes,
I like an even predictability.
I don't like the, Hey, we'regonna get 80 football players
this year, but then we're gonnabe too big, so we're only gonna
get 40 the next year.
(04:26):
That creates these swings inenrollment.
That's not good for theinstitution.
We need a predictable rostersize.
The last thing I'll say, Matt,is, and this is, we're in the
middle of this at Otterbein, andnot everyone loves it, but we're
working on it.
I am pushing us towards abudgeting model for athletics
that is a per student athletemodel.
Thank you.
I wanna, it doesn't make anysense to push coaches to recruit
(04:49):
more student athletes and notgive them resources to support
those athletes in the same way.
It doesn't make any sense thatif your number of athletes have
dropped by 50 athletes, youshould need less budget now to
support your student athletes.
Exactly.
You go up or down with thenumber of students that you're
serving on those rosters, and sothat incentive structure has
been lacking here and I think alot of schools, and I would like
(05:10):
to get us there.
I love it.
I will beat that drum for youall day long.
And I teach coaches this.
I go, if your athletic directorand your president isn't pushing
it, you need to push it becausethat is your that's your
leverage that you can say.
Every year I have 20 kids in myroster.
Every single year I'm putting 20kids in the classroom and we're
(05:31):
retaining 90% on the team andwe're, and at least, or 70% are
retained on the team and 90% arestaying on campus.
So even some of those kids thatdon't, decide they're not good
enough or don't wanna play,they're staying here.
So I love that incentive.
How does that work withassistant, full-time assistant
coaches for you?
So we have not had that model,but in theory, if you can create
(05:56):
the incentive through a fundingper athlete sort of approach to
incentivize a coach to grow thatroster, then you would have a
full JV program in my mind withthe support of an assistant
coach to deal with thosenumbers.
It has never made sense to me,and this will be controversial
when I say it.
Way we place assistant coachesin athletics.
(06:17):
There's no rhyme or reason toit.
We often don't have a full-timeassistant in baseball or
softball, even though they tendto have larger rosters, but by
God we always have one inbasketball.
Like I, it just let'srationalize this a little bit.
Yeah.
And actually get that help wherethe students are, as opposed to
everyone else does it this waynow let's think about where we
(06:38):
have student athletes in need ofmore support and have the
incentives in place to make thathappen.
Yeah, absolutely.
And if coaches are smart aboutit and saying, okay, if I need
20 kids on my basketball roster,I need 22, and I get a full-time
assistant.
And if we can maintain that,that's right.
Who's not gonna work towardsthat?
And coaches are competitive.
Matt put a mark on the wall.
(06:59):
Yes.
Let a mark towards it and givethem a reason to get there.
I love it.
I love it.
Let's do it.
You be the model and I'll preachit to anybody that'll listen.
If I can get that past everyonehere, I'll let you know.
Two quick questions for you andthen I'm gonna let you go.
And I know you gotta go toanother meeting.
Quick piece of advice for aparent going through the college
(07:19):
experience and it could be anydirection you want to go.
What did they need to understandabout their child wanting to
play in college and what theyneed to be thinking about?
Yeah, and I just have a, I havea college freshman who just
started last week.
So I just went, did all thesecollege, he's not he was an
athlete in high school, wasn'tinterested in playing in
college, but still my, what Ibeat is match.
(07:41):
You don't go to a school becauseall your friends are going
there.
You don't go to a school becauseyour boyfriend or girlfriend is
going there.
You don't go to a school becauseyou always see him play on
Saturday, on tv.
You go to a school that is amatch for you, and it's not just
because it feels good and youhad a good tour guide.
Do they have a program that's amatch for you?
Do they have faculty that aregonna know your name?
(08:01):
Do they have the right financialaid?
So you're not gonna pay throughthe nose for something that's
not meaningfully different thansomething that could have been
half that cost?
Thank you.
Like it's a match thing asopposed to a group think that we
often get.
I did a little aside when I wasin graduate school.
I was on Illumina Foundationgrant and we did research on
student migration patterns inWestern states, which is just as
(08:24):
exciting as it sounds, Matt.
But I did a meta analysis of allthe research about how students
pick their colleges and theanswer of 50, 60 years of
research is there is no rhyme orreason, right?
It's because they had a nicetour guide on a sunny day and it
felt like home.
And that's not a reason to makea life decision.
That's true.
Like where and the equivalent ofconsumer reports, like if you're
(08:46):
gonna buy a car, I read ConsumerReports First is US News and
these other magazines wheretheir criteria are not
individualized to you.
They're ranking minivans andsports cars and SUVs on the same
list.
And you've gotta aside, do Iwant a sports car or a minivan
or an SUV?
You've gotta know what you wantfirst before you go to some
list.
And often they don't know whatthey want and what they need
(09:08):
first.
I agree.
I love it.
And it's what I preach andthere's gonna be a book showing
up and you won't know where itcame from, but I'll send it to
you and you tell me yourthoughts when you get it.
Oh, great.
Same question.
For the student athlete that momand dad is making them listen to
these three minutes of thispodcast, what does the student
athlete need to understand abouttheir journey?
(09:30):
Student athletes, I would saystudent is before athlete for a
reason, right?
We love that you wanna play thissport.
We want you on our team.
We want you to represent aschool, and it's gonna be a big
part of your experience, but youdon't want to go to a school to
play football or to playbasketball or to play softball,
right?
You want to go to a schoolbecause that's where you want to
get educated.
That's where you want toconnect.
(09:51):
That's where you want to haveyour life transformed, and as a
bonus, you get to play thissport.
And at least that's the D threementality.
And it may not be in the otherdivisions, but I think knowing
that very few people end upgoing pro, having first things
first is really what's gonnamatter?
Fantastic.
I love the conversation.
I wish it was longer if mytechnological skills weren't so
(10:12):
poor.
We did great.
Matt, but good luck witheverything and I'll look forward
to future conversations.
Likewise Matt.
I'm glad to know you and thanksfor inviting me.
That wraps up part two of myconversation with Dr.
John Erford, president ofOtterbein University.
What stands out most about Dr.
Comerford is that he's notafraid to go against the norm or
(10:33):
push back on the status quo.
He's willing to fight for what'sright for his community, for his
coaches, and for families whosimply want an easier path to
get their kids to college.
That kind of conviction is whatmakes his leadership resonate so
strongly with me.
If you're a parent or a studentathlete, I hope this
conversation gave you a clearerpicture of what true leadership
(10:53):
looks like in collegerecruiting.
And if you're a coach, it's areminder that the standards you
set and the values you liveimpact far more than your team's
record.
For more resources onrecruiting, coaching, and
leadership, visit coach mattrogers.com and don't forget to
subscribe to our weeklynewsletter.
See you never miss an episode, ablog, or the latest recruiting
(11:14):
help.
Until next time, stay focused,stay humble, and keep chasing
significance.
Welcome back to The SignificantRecruiting Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's episode is part two ofmy conversation with Dr.
John Erford, president ofOtterbein University in
Westerville, Ohio.
In part one, he challenged us torethink everything we believe
about the cost of college.
In part two, we turn to theworld of college athletics,
(00:31):
specifically recruiting and whathe expects from his coaches.
What struck me most in thisconversation is how Dr.
Erford approaches recruitingwith the same conviction he
brings to higher education.
He believes recruiting should berooted in honesty, integrity,
and alignment with the missionof the institution.
He sets clear expectations forhis coaches to recruit, not just
(00:55):
talented athletes, but the rightpeople, students of character
who will exceed in theclassroom, in competition and in
the community for parents,student athletes, and coaches
alike.
This is an eye-openingdiscussion on what leadership at
the very top expects when itcomes to the recruiting process.
Before we dive in, make sureyou've subscribed to our weekly
(01:15):
newsletter so you never miss anycontent, podcasts, blogs, and
recruiting tips that can helpyour family or your program.
You can sign up and find all mybooks, classes and
resources@coachmattrogers.com.
Now let's get to it.
Here's part two of myconversation with Dr.
John Erford.
John, so great to see you again.
(01:37):
This is what we call theSignificant recruiting podcast,
so it's a little different thanwhat we did before.
And I know as the president,you're not out there necessarily
doing a lot of recruiting, eventhough you're recruiting alumni
and benefactors and things likethat.
So you are a big time recruiter,maybe the most important
recruiter on your campus.
Do any of your coaches use youfor recruiting?
(01:57):
Yeah, so we do visit days.
Yeah.
And several coaches, not all thecoaches have me come in and do a
little welcome at a visit day.
I also go out of my way.
Here's a little secret, and Ithink every CA campus has a
version of this.
You can tell a campus tour atOtterbine because the visiting
student is carrying a red bag.
We give'em a red bag as soon asthey get to campus and you watch
for red bags on campus.
(02:18):
I love that.
That's so smart.
I know, right?
So I beeline over anytime I seea a red bag, vater, I know the
coaches.
And so I can see a coach iswalking somebody around, right?
And so I always walk up, meetthe student, always introduce
myself to the parents.
But I always try to engage thestudent in conversation.
And then what I know ishappening in these, whether
(02:38):
they're athletes or not, when Ido that with a tour group or do
that on a visit day, then thecoach or the tour guide uses
that as an example of our greatcommunity here.
See, even the president can walkup and say hi to you and
whatever.
That's what INE is.
I become the symbol of that.
Yeah.
And yeah I love to be engaged init.
That's great.
When you talk about numbers withyour athletic director, and I'm
(03:01):
sure you have regularconversations with your ad or
whoever your VP is overseeingthat, what do roster sizes mean
to you in terms of max and min?
We, we have the full spectrum inour country.
We have coaches, we havepresidents that say, we're gonna
milk athletics for all we'vegot.
We're gonna, we're gonna fillbeds, and if we have to have 40
(03:21):
kids on a basketball roster,we're gonna do it.
And then we have presidents tosay, I want healthy rosters.
I want coaches to figure outwhat they need to be healthy and
successful.
Where do you stand with that?
So I want a positive studentexperience.
And so if you get too big andyou don't adequately resource
(03:44):
it, like with the JV program andassistant coaches and whatever
else to give a positive studentathlete experience, you're gonna
end up with a retention problemand eventually a reputational
problem in that program.
Yeah.
And so you might have the shortterm boost of, we got 10 more
students this last fall.
But then a year later when theyhaven't had a good experience,
they haven't had any playingtime, they haven't any attention
(04:04):
from the coach.
They haven't had a JV game toplay.
They're gonna leave.
Yeah.
And that's gonna be bad for yourschool and bad for your program
in the long term.
So it's finding that sweet spot.
The other thing I would throwout is in terms of roster sizes,
I like an even predictability.
I don't like the, Hey, we'regonna get 80 football players
this year, but then we're gonnabe too big, so we're only gonna
get 40 the next year.
(04:26):
That creates these swings inenrollment.
That's not good for theinstitution.
We need a predictable rostersize.
The last thing I'll say, Matt,is, and this is, we're in the
middle of this at Otterbein, andnot everyone loves it, but we're
working on it.
I am pushing us towards abudgeting model for athletics
that is a per student athletemodel.
Thank you.
I wanna, it doesn't make anysense to push coaches to recruit
(04:49):
more student athletes and notgive them resources to support
those athletes in the same way.
It doesn't make any sense thatif your number of athletes have
dropped by 50 athletes, youshould need less budget now to
support your student athletes.
Exactly.
You go up or down with thenumber of students that you're
serving on those rosters, and sothat incentive structure has
been lacking here and I think alot of schools, and I would like
(05:10):
to get us there.
I love it.
I will beat that drum for youall day long.
And I teach coaches this.
I go, if your athletic directorand your president isn't pushing
it, you need to push it becausethat is your that's your
leverage that you can say.
Every year I have 20 kids in myroster.
Every single year I'm putting 20kids in the classroom and we're
(05:31):
retaining 90% on the team andwe're, and at least, or 70% are
retained on the team and 90% arestaying on campus.
So even some of those kids thatdon't, decide they're not good
enough or don't wanna play,they're staying here.
So I love that incentive.
How does that work withassistant, full-time assistant
coaches for you?
So we have not had that model,but in theory, if you can create
(05:56):
the incentive through a fundingper athlete sort of approach to
incentivize a coach to grow thatroster, then you would have a
full JV program in my mind withthe support of an assistant
coach to deal with thosenumbers.
It has never made sense to me,and this will be controversial
when I say it.
Way we place assistant coachesin athletics.
(06:17):
There's no rhyme or reason toit.
We often don't have a full-timeassistant in baseball or
softball, even though they tendto have larger rosters, but by
God we always have one inbasketball.
Like I, it just let'srationalize this a little bit.
Yeah.
And actually get that help wherethe students are, as opposed to
everyone else does it this waynow let's think about where we
(06:38):
have student athletes in need ofmore support and have the
incentives in place to make thathappen.
Yeah, absolutely.
And if coaches are smart aboutit and saying, okay, if I need
20 kids on my basketball roster,I need 22, and I get a full-time
assistant.
And if we can maintain that,that's right.
Who's not gonna work towardsthat?
And coaches are competitive.
Matt put a mark on the wall.
(06:59):
Yes.
Let a mark towards it and givethem a reason to get there.
I love it.
I love it.
Let's do it.
You be the model and I'll preachit to anybody that'll listen.
If I can get that past everyonehere, I'll let you know.
Two quick questions for you andthen I'm gonna let you go.
And I know you gotta go toanother meeting.
Quick piece of advice for aparent going through the college
(07:19):
experience and it could be anydirection you want to go.
What did they need to understandabout their child wanting to
play in college and what theyneed to be thinking about?
Yeah, and I just have a, I havea college freshman who just
started last week.
So I just went, did all thesecollege, he's not he was an
athlete in high school, wasn'tinterested in playing in
college, but still my, what Ibeat is match.
(07:41):
You don't go to a school becauseall your friends are going
there.
You don't go to a school becauseyour boyfriend or girlfriend is
going there.
You don't go to a school becauseyou always see him play on
Saturday, on tv.
You go to a school that is amatch for you, and it's not just
because it feels good and youhad a good tour guide.
Do they have a program that's amatch for you?
Do they have faculty that aregonna know your name?
(08:01):
Do they have the right financialaid?
So you're not gonna pay throughthe nose for something that's
not meaningfully different thansomething that could have been
half that cost?
Thank you.
Like it's a match thing asopposed to a group think that we
often get.
I did a little aside when I wasin graduate school.
I was on Illumina Foundationgrant and we did research on
student migration patterns inWestern states, which is just as
(08:24):
exciting as it sounds, Matt.
But I did a meta analysis of allthe research about how students
pick their colleges and theanswer of 50, 60 years of
research is there is no rhyme orreason, right?
It's because they had a nicetour guide on a sunny day and it
felt like home.
And that's not a reason to makea life decision.
That's true.
Like where and the equivalent ofconsumer reports, like if you're
(08:46):
gonna buy a car, I read ConsumerReports First is US News and
these other magazines wheretheir criteria are not
individualized to you.
They're ranking minivans andsports cars and SUVs on the same
list.
And you've gotta aside, do Iwant a sports car or a minivan
or an SUV?
You've gotta know what you wantfirst before you go to some
list.
And often they don't know whatthey want and what they need
(09:08):
first.
I agree.
I love it.
And it's what I preach andthere's gonna be a book showing
up and you won't know where itcame from, but I'll send it to
you and you tell me yourthoughts when you get it.
Oh, great.
Same question.
For the student athlete that momand dad is making them listen to
these three minutes of thispodcast, what does the student
athlete need to understand abouttheir journey?
(09:30):
Student athletes, I would saystudent is before athlete for a
reason, right?
We love that you wanna play thissport.
We want you on our team.
We want you to represent aschool, and it's gonna be a big
part of your experience, but youdon't want to go to a school to
play football or to playbasketball or to play softball,
right?
You want to go to a schoolbecause that's where you want to
get educated.
That's where you want toconnect.
(09:51):
That's where you want to haveyour life transformed, and as a
bonus, you get to play thissport.
And at least that's the D threementality.
And it may not be in the otherdivisions, but I think knowing
that very few people end upgoing pro, having first things
first is really what's gonnamatter?
Fantastic.
I love the conversation.
I wish it was longer if mytechnological skills weren't so
(10:12):
poor.
We did great.
Matt, but good luck witheverything and I'll look forward
to future conversations.
Likewise Matt.
I'm glad to know you and thanksfor inviting me.
That wraps up part two of myconversation with Dr.
John Erford, president ofOtterbein University.
What stands out most about Dr.
Comerford is that he's notafraid to go against the norm or
(10:33):
push back on the status quo.
He's willing to fight for what'sright for his community, for his
coaches, and for families whosimply want an easier path to
get their kids to college.
That kind of conviction is whatmakes his leadership resonate so
strongly with me.
If you're a parent or a studentathlete, I hope this
conversation gave you a clearerpicture of what true leadership
(10:53):
looks like in collegerecruiting.
And if you're a coach, it's areminder that the standards you
set and the values you liveimpact far more than your team's
record.
For more resources onrecruiting, coaching, and
leadership, visit coach mattrogers.com and don't forget to
subscribe to our weeklynewsletter.
See you never miss an episode, ablog, or the latest recruiting
(11:14):
help.
Until next time, stay focused,stay humble, and keep chasing
significance.
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