Powerful game

— A lot of the buzz generated before the start of this year’s Southeastern 7-on-7 Championship centered on Auburn High linebacker Reuben Foster.

Local fans and local media alike were disappointed to learn on Saturday that Foster, one of the most heralded high school recruits in the nation, didn’t make the trip with his Auburn teammates to The Daily Citizen’s 32-team tournament.

He had generated headlines across the nation earlier this week when he flipped on his commitment to coach Nick Saban and defending national champions Alabama in order to commit to Auburn University.

The former Troup County standout, who transferred from the Georgia school to Auburn High earlier this year, even had an Auburn University logo tattooed onto his arm as a sign of his commitment to the Tigers, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog item.

But Auburn High coach Tim Carter said Foster was recovering from a hamstring injury and was being held out this weekend.

Still, the attention paid to Foster’s recruitment, the media coverage of his transfer from Troup after his former head coach was fired and the growth of websites and social media dedicated solely to coverage of college football recruiting make clear how much things have changed over the past 20 years.

And events like the Southeastern 7-on-7 Championship, which concludes with bracket play today, are part of the debates over team vs. individuals, college recruiting exposure and what is best for the sport and the kids who play it.

Two decades ago, the forerunner of seven-on-seven tournaments and camps were events called passing leagues and shell games. Neighboring teams would meet at a central school and have glorified games of two-hand touch football because physical contact outside of certain mandated periods is regulated by most state high school associations.

While basketball, baseball, softball and other sports have traveling teams and all-star competitions outside of the high school seasons, football has always been more about the high school team and less about those other associations.

That fact, said many of the high school coaches who brought their teams to Dalton for this weekend’s tournament, is exactly what is right with the Southeastern 7-on-7 Championship.

“Using seven-on-seven as a team concept where you can work on your offense or your defense is a great thing,” Carter said.

“That is the great thing about this weekend is that it is all about the 32 teams that are here, working to get better and getting competition against other quality programs. But the all-star teams are getting out of control. It is starting to scare some established coaches.”

Frank Barden has been the head coach of Cartersville High’s Purple Hurricanes for 17 years. In that time, he has seen his son, Brooks, go from a newborn to a hot quarterback recruit for the class of 2014. He has seen the changes to the summer passing leagues and seen the growth of an offseason focus on recruiting.

His team competed in the Cam Newton Foundation 7-on-7 Tournament earlier this summer in metro Atlanta, earning one of the qualifying spots to the IMG Madden national tournament in Florida. Several players from around the state, including North Murray receiver Jacob Mays, were named to the all-star team under Newton’s banner and competed in the tournament.

While Barden lauded the Newton Foundation for the money raised for various charities through the tournament, he understands the concerns with all-star teams and the possible ramifications.

“I think (seven-on-seven) is a mixed blessing,” Barden said. “It is great if it is what you primarily do on Friday night with your offense and it is great for your defense to see so much of it because so many teams are passing more and more. However, you have to be careful that you aren’t creating a sport within itself. There are repercussions to all of that.”

It is a slope that football coaches don’t want to travel down, especially when they compare what could happen in football to what has happened in basketball.

Over the past several years, summer basketball teams and the Amateur Athletic Union that oversees much of the off-season basketball play in the country has been rocked by scandal after scandal involving NCAA recruitment violations, rampant accusations of summer coaches and players recruiting players to transfer between high schools and even involvement with sports agents at the high school level.

Earlier this month, the NCAA announced four AAU summer league teams were banned from participating in NCAA-sanctioned evaluation events because of ties to sports agent Andy Miller, the founder of ASM Sports agency.

Miller was upset with the teams about the lack of a return on his investment after giving financial aid in order to gain future NBA players that he could represent. It wasn't happening, so Miller vented his frustrations in an email to AAU operators.

“Am I getting the level of production in return that I want or expect?” Miller asked in his email. “...You decided to be apart [sic] of it on some level…Do more than just give it thought, act on it.”

Carter, who has several other players on his team getting attention from major colleges, knows it is a fine line to be walked by the high school football community.

“It is very difficult for high-profile players to keep a level head and for coaches to try and keep that in check,” Carter said. “It takes a very mature kid to keep that in check.

“But at the same time, high school football is better than ever, and it is big business. We have to be careful that we don’t lose the integrity of the game. We have to be careful that we don’t turn this into strictly business with recruiting.”

The wealth of information on recruiting has grown exponentially over the past two decades as well. At one point, recruiting was something focused on and reported about one time of the year — when national signing day rolled around in February. Now, major newspapers devote vast amounts of resources to coverage of recruiting, and a plethora of websites focus solely on the business of recruiting and the promise of exposure for athletes — for a fee.

“That is probably one of the biggest things that has changed in my career — recruiting,” Barden said. “If you aren’t out there getting your name out there, you are missing an opportunity.”

Cameron Luper, Auburn High’s standout quarterback who has offers from numerous Division I FCS programs, is the son of Auburn University running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Curtis Luper. From his perspective as a recruited athlete, as well as the lessons learned from his father’s profession, the younger Luper knows that seven-on-seven offers exposure for players, but the true tests come on Friday night.

“For a lot of players, they can show off their quickness and it can showcase your athleticism at things like this, but this isn’t real football,” Luper said. “I’ve seen people who can’t handle the pressure when the lights go on, and they just can’t handle it. I’ve been doing this long enough to take the pressure as a challenge. It all comes down to how you are raised and how your parents are guiding you.”

Griffin High free safety Richard Wilder has offers from Georgia State and Mississippi State and is exploring his options. He said while seven-on-seven is more about the team and getting ready for the season, the players know that it can be a step to college as well.

“The players should know that you have to make your mark out there or you aren’t going to get an opportunity,” Wilder said. “We are practicing our abilities and skills, and you never know when a college coach is going to see you or see some film of you and get in contact.”

Still, more and more all-star camps and tournaments are popping up, something coaches aren’t exactly thrilled about.

“I think (seven-on-seven) is successful when you use it in terms of your team,” Dalton coach Matt Land said. “We use seven-on-seven for the competition and to work on our team cohesion. When people throw out that you have to do these kinds of things for exposure and to get seen — the reality is if you are good, they will find you.

“We have created this culture, but that is what I love about the South. This is something that I can’t make my friends from up north understand. College football doesn’t stop down here. Now, is it too much? Sometimes I think it is too much. (Recruiting) is a beast, and regrettably, the more you feed at the trough, the bigger it gets. The way we combat it is stopping the things that are beyond the team. It helps us to keep it in check.”

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