Imagine driving hundreds and hundreds of miles in hopes of finding a parking spot, only to arrive at the lot to find that the spaces are taken up by other cars — ones that had migrated from another area just because they preferred this one.

Not all that long ago, however, there would’ve been plenty of places for your car to sit.

Not now, though.

High school football players are encountering such a dilemma as the transfer portal has grown.

“It seems like it makes the high school athlete’s way to get noticed a lot more difficult,” Butler football coach Eric Christy said. “It’s turned into, ‘Can you make the best highlight tape? Or can you catch someone’s eye?’ ... Colleges are looking now to say, like, ‘Yeah, I can take an older kid and get two years out of him rather than developing that kid who’s maybe not quite physically ready to go.’

“They can just keep turning in another kid, put him in the spot, and let him roll.”

Methods of college recruiting have rapidly changed with the times. The process of gaining attention has become painstaking.

“I think it’s really, really putting a damper on it,” Mars coach Eric Kasperowicz said. “It’s much easier for these schools now to opt into the portal and take a kid that’s been proven at a different school — already developed and two, three years older — rather than taking a kid out of high school and developing him.”

Roster positions are becoming more and more sparse because of that.

“Some of the local schools around here have told me that they don’t recruit high school nearly as much as they used to because of the portal,” Seneca Valley coach Ron Butschle said. “The kids who aren’t the premier Division I (prospects) are the ones losing out. The ones that maybe five, six years ago would have been scholarship players, they get the trickle down to Division II and some guys just end up playing Division III.”

As a father, Slippery Rock University coach Shawn Lutz recently saw that firsthand. His son, Gavin, a standout senior wide receiver/defensive back at Grove City High School, dealt with the same problems as his colleagues before recently committing to play for the Rock.

“It’s hard to get recruited now,” the elder Lutz said. “I feel bad for high school players because (the portal) has taken away big-time on that.”

Sign of the Times

There might be not be any better microcosm for the direction of the sport than Christy’s observations at a recruiting day that North Allegheny High School hosts in the spring and fall.

“Certain programs will approach you with, ‘Hey, we’re trying to build from the ground up. We want high school kids,’” Christy said. “Other programs, they’re just like, ‘We just pull from the portal.’ A lot of the times, they’re not even at those days anymore.”

Even the programs that stress constructing a team organically might not turn away interested transfers. Christy understands the situation.

“It’s one of those things that, if it’s benefiting you, why not?” He said. “If you can get a polished kid who’s coming from somewhere with some experience — that you can see tape on on the college level — why not take them?”

It doesn’t mean that he likes how things are now. Really, coaches have no option other than to resign to the fact that college football’s landscape has been altered.

“It’s given the power a little bit back to the athlete,” Christy said. “I don’t know, necessarily, if that’s good or bad. It just is what it is. I think sometimes people jump to it too quickly. It seems that we’ve lost loyalty to programs with that because, ‘Play me or I’m leaving.’”

Kasperowicz has noticed that Power Five schools are relying more on retreads while leaving limited roster space for high school recruits with high upside. Division II and III programs — namely those that haven’t enjoyed success — are taking the more traditional route with rounding out their depth charts.

“We’re going to fill immediate needs from the portal,” Coach Lutz explained. “We’re still going to have balance with high school kids.”

Coach Lutz detailed a database, which is through AthLinkd, that his staff uses specifically to scour the portal. It helps his program identify and track mid-year guys that could bolster the team. A decade ago, those sorts of things probably didn’t exist — at least not in such a widespread manner.

“It can change a program,” Coach Lutz said. “I want to see guys from the portal that have played in college. I don’t care if it’s Division III, Division II.”

Helping Hand

High school coaches are trying to make sure their kids don’t get left in the dust.

Christy and Butler began holding a recruiting event seminar last year. Lee Stalker, a Butler football alum who’s now the Assistant Director of Player Personnel for Iowa State’s football program, put a presentation together that served as the basis for the event.

Christy’s main objective is to educate his players on what college coaches are looking for — a confluence of factors that include GPA and standardized test scores, family life, and work ethic.

For Kasperowicz, it’s about using a network he’s developed in his time as a coach.

“It’s all connections,” Kasperowicz said about his staff’s efforts to boost recruiting. “It’s all who you know. Coaches, when they come to town, they call you up and want to come see you. Then, you obviously have conversations about who you have.”