Football recruiting changed more between 2024 and 2026 than in the previous two decades. The House v. NCAA settlement rewrote scholarship math for both FBS and FCS, 7-on-7 became a primary skill-position evaluation environment, and the long-standing 40-yard-dash skepticism became sharper as families started asking for verified numbers in writing. Three things to understand before recruiting season heats up.
Football recruiting changed more between 2024 and 2026 than in the previous two decades. The House v. NCAA settlement rewrote scholarship math for both FBS and FCS, 7-on-7 became a primary skill-position evaluation environment, and the long-standing 40-yard-dash skepticism became sharper as families started asking for verified numbers in writing. Three things to understand before recruiting season heats up.
For most of the modern era, the FBS-FCS scholarship distinction was clean and well-understood:
That structure was the foundation of the FBS-vs-FCS recruiting conversation for decades. A player with an FBS offer was looking at a full ride. A player with an FCS offer was usually looking at a partial.
The 2025-26 House v. NCAA settlement replaced scholarship limits with roster limits across all D1 sports. The football specifics:
In practice this means two things families miss:
The right question for any 2026-and-later football offer is: "What is the funded scholarship structure of this program for the current cycle?" — not "Is this FBS or FCS?"
The 40-yard dash is the most-cited measurable in football recruiting, and it's also the most-inflated. The reason is timing methodology.
A hand-timed 40 uses a stopwatch, with someone clicking start at "go" and stop at the finish line. Human reaction time means the start gets clicked roughly 0.20-0.24 seconds late on average. A hand-timed 4.5 is roughly equivalent to a laser-timed 4.7.
A laser-timed 40 uses optical-trigger timing — the timer starts when the runner crosses a beam at the start line and stops when they cross a beam at the finish. There's no human reaction delay. Laser times are slower than hand times for the same runner, and they are the only times college coaches trust without further verification.
This matters because high school coaches and family timers almost always hand-time. The "4.4 40" cited on a high school recruit's profile is, statistically, very likely a hand-timed number that would run 4.6-4.7 on a laser at a college combine. Coaches know this and discount the number accordingly.
The places coaches trust 40 times:
Casual numbers from a high school combine or a personal trainer are treated as marketing, not data.
7-on-7 football — passing-only, no linemen, no contact — has gone from an offseason curiosity to a primary skill-position evaluation environment over the last decade. Quarterbacks, receivers, defensive backs, and tight ends are now routinely evaluated at 7-on-7 events, with coaches attending elite tournaments to watch live reps.
The advantage: 7-on-7 isolates skill-position play. You see route running, ball-tracking, hip turn at the break, and coverage technique without the noise of pass protection or play-action. For DBs in particular, 7-on-7 is one of the few environments where college coaches can evaluate man-coverage technique against high-level WR talent.
The limit: 7-on-7 doesn't evaluate physicality, tackling, blocking, or run defense. A linebacker, a safety with strong run support, or a receiver whose value is in blocking — none of these players are fully captured in 7-on-7. The game film from the full pads season is still the primary evaluation surface for those skill sets.
The recruiting math: skill-position recruits at high-major D1 programs almost always have a 7-on-7 footprint. If a recruit is targeting Power Four programs and hasn't played meaningful 7-on-7 by junior year, it's a gap to address before junior summer.
Verified measurables — laser-timed 40 results, vertical jump, broad jump, height/weight — live as first-class data on a Lightning for Players & Parents profile, with verification metadata (where and when measured) attached so coaches can distinguish a college-camp laser time from a high-school hand time. Game film and 7-on-7 highlight clips live alongside as separate evaluation surfaces. Lightning is $25/yr base; Pro tier ($50/yr) adds more features. NCSA's premium tiers run from $1,000 to several thousand per year depending on package — verify with vendors. See the football recruiting page for position-specific measurable ranges and the camp calendar.
The shortest version: don't show up to a coach conversation with a hand-timed 40 you can't verify, ask what the program's funded scholarship structure actually looks like post-settlement, and add a 7-on-7 footprint to your evaluation surface if you're at a skill position.
— Christian Bentley, Founder, First Step Athletics