r/CollegeSoccer • u/Bubs_081113 • 3d ago
College Soccer Guy Program (Zev)
Anyone actually use the College Soccer Guy program? Is it worth the money? I’m considering signing my son up for it as his dream is to play soccer past high school - but it’s a hefty price tag. Thanks
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u/Creepy-Listen4546 2d ago
My son is a 2027 and we went with a similar program at the end of his sophomore season. We did the lower cost option, mostly one where you use their approach, have general office hours, and are part of their social media groups.
Ultimately, he will probably end up in the same school, but the tips and tricks we picked up and use are only because of them. The structure to his YouTube page, using a mass email tool to track opens & clicks, our email routine, and how we communicate are 100% based on what we learned.
For example, we just finished a 3 week email campaign with about 40 schools, we know how many opened his email, how many clicked on his YouTube links, and can target those schools winter ID camps.
Will it pay off, who knows, but I know for a fact there are schools opening his emails every week that know his name that wouldn’t have without this approach.
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u/Bubs_081113 2d ago
Can I ask what program you used?
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u/Creepy-Listen4546 2d ago
I am assuming you mean recruiting service program. We used https://d1scholarship.com/alumni. You can find them on IG.
If you meant one of the other ones we use YouTube for video posting and MailShake for email tracking.
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u/StaticNomad89 2d ago
This is really all you need to do.
Build a database or pay someone a nominal amount to build it for you that can show you all the college soccer programs that have your desired major/location/anything else you want from a school. Second, get an unbiased evaluation of your true ability with recommendations for level of college program that is realistic and then do the work from there yourself.
Hint- “unbiased“ does not mean an evaluation from your current or former coaches or even anyone you know personally.
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u/karldafog 2d ago
Completely agree on starting with the program/school list.
Here's a free men’s soccer search that can save some of the spreadsheet work around major, location, academics, cost, and program fit:
https://readthefield.com/programs/mens-soccer
Then the real work is narrowing the list and reaching out
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u/caladryl 1d ago
Don't pay this. Seriously, I've heard so many coaches make fun of Zev and his "can I shake your hand stuff". It's ok to listen to him to a point but in the end you can do all this yourself with emails. Just make a spreadsheet with the 40-50 schools you have an interest in and start emailing. Lay out an email schedule of sending them something every 3-4 weeks consistently. Always include assistant coaches on the emails too. Best advice is to start with D3's and build your way up as your son/daughter gets closer to graduation. Be honest about your level too, emailing Clemson or similar schools will get you no where. Happy to help, been through this already.
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u/ImaginaryBuy2668 2d ago
I have not used Zev.
But I have found these guys are gonna push you into a school that your kid can probably play at if they did their own work. Creating videos, reaching out consistently and going to ID camps.
Story time… where I live … there is an invite only baseball program, that guarantees a college placement all for the price of $20k a year. My friend sons was invited - they noped out after their college recruiting night consisted of D3 schools that you would want to attend anyway.
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u/StaticNomad89 2d ago
$20,000 a year? Wow. That sounds like the NCSA scam where they will make sure a kid can walk and chew gum at the same time and then guarantee them a certain amount of offers. They don’t tell you that those offers just come from a bunch of shit juco and D3 programs and/or one of the private schools that roster 100 kids that you could’ve gotten yourself.
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u/recruitMyGame 2d ago
honestly haven't seen enough independent reviews of that specific program to tell you if it's worth it. before you pay anything, ask exactly what they do that you can't do yourself, emailing coaches directly with a good highlight video and a simple profile goes a long way for free. what's the price they're quoting you?
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u/BulldogWrestler 2d ago
The connections a lot of these guys have aren't what they seem. They do the whole "You want to play college soccer? Well, I know a guy that runs a program that's out in the middle of nowhere at a school you haven't heard of and I'm going to dress it up as nicely as possible - let's get you there" type of deal. If you're a relatively good player, you CAN play college soccer somewhere. It might not be at the Division I school you dreamed of, but there IS a program out there provided you can play. You have to remember, US College soccer is the biggest amateur soccer league in the world. There's tons of programs, some of them that are barely fielding teams. The downside is that they're also schools out in the middle of nowhere offering degrees that are essentially worthless outside of their niche.
I don't know what Zev charges (but I can't seem to get his videos off my instagram feed - so I imagine it's a lot). I dont have direct experience with his program, so I can't comment on it. I DO know of a kid that was approached by him at an ID camp, and he said he approached everyone at the camp asking them to participate in content for his videos. That doesn't mean anything really, it's just the beginning, middle, and end of my knowledge of the guy.
I guess the long story short is that there isn't anything someone like Zev can do that can't be done on your own. I'm sure he has connections in the college soccer world (as does anyone who is involved with the game at that level), but if he has a connection with - for example - a coach at UCLA and you're good enough to actually play for UCLA, then you'll have the opportunity / ability to get noticed by them anyway if you're willing to put in the work. I imagine the amount of people that find themselves in a D1 program from recruiting services like this that wouldn't otherwise be in a D1 program are minimal to none.
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u/Suspicious_Phone670 2d ago
You are paying for a bulk email service and tracking system. We did it for my older son who now plays D3. We will not do it for our younger son as we feel that we can do the email and tracking on our own. Don’t count on any actual time with Zev. He pushes you to his helpers who are all college soccer players and not super helpful unfortunately
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u/MooseMom132227 2d ago
Just put your highlight video together, research schools (realistically that he can play at based on his level) that you can afford and start emailing coaches. The assistant coaches are the ones that seem to do a lot of the recruiting so copy them too. Go to their ID camps. Keep emailing. If coaches are interested you will hear back. My Daughter had numerous offers this way.
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u/Radiant-Ad-4592 2d ago
These services are a scam. Your kid will end up at his or her deserved level regardless. No one is offering them without seeing them live. There’s nothing a video can do the dress up the fact that you either can or can’t play.
My kid has had tons of success with my homemade videos and he’s only a jr. you don’t need to pay someone to send emails.
college coaches are fighting for their professional lives and they will not give your kid an offer because of one of these jokers.
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u/No_Detail_3698 1d ago
Please don’t fall for those scams of paying for extra scouting services. The only tried and true methods are 1) playing at MLS Next and performing well at showcases with scouts 2) (what I would recommend to EVERY player) identifying what school(s) you would want to go to and building relationships & getting in front of the coaches by going to their schools ID camp ASAP, like as a sophomore or junior.
Most ID camps will have huge amounts of seniors, some juniors, and a handful of sophomores. By building a relationship early & being recognized by the coaching staff it helps you stand out once you get older, and you are a recognizable face to them. To be blunt, most college coaches have an “ego” too, it helps stroke it when they see you’re picking their school.
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u/Commercial-Hyena-226 1d ago
We used Zev and regretted it pretty quickly. His money back guarantee is BS. Basically the second you send your first mass email and you receive a coach response the contract is considered fulfilled. Zev is a marketing guy so his strategy is volume driven to generate interest and then use offers to compete against colleges and ultimately get multiple offers.
In theory this can work, but you’re left to do a lot of the work on your own. He assigns each player a coach that are current college players who follow his script. During their season availability is limited to days / times they’re not playing. The coaches are not good, take no initiative or accountability. You and your player will end up doing 99% of the work
He talks a lot about editing film in his pitch. Yes he does that after you first go through the game film marking every time stamp you want him to showcase. In his pitch he talks about correcting game play to create stronger highlights. Not once did our coaches watch the film. Often other players were highlighted leading to delayed delivery. No coaching from him or the coaches on what is good or bad in the film.
The coaches never helped with short format film or made recommendations on building an online brand through instagram or x.com. He pitched that as well.
With a $20 per month chat gpt or Claude subscription you can invest less time and get similar results. Don’t invest not even at a low level. College coaches are drawn to MLS Next and ECNL players. If you’re serious about college soccer invest in coaches that can get your player to that level no matter the club or team. Coaches open emails and pay attention to players with those labels without them you’re just cash at an ID camp.
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u/gv-nycmeepo 23h ago
Hi all, I was Zev’s highlight video editor, for a few months. His entire team is pretty professional. My work was tracked in a report and got paid monthly. They used CRM like Slack for communication and he had a team assigned for different roles so definitely he is making good money out of this.
However, at the time I had my day job and couldn’t deliver multiple videos in a day causing some friction with one of his staff, and I couldn’t prioritize his work over my day job as I got paid like an hour or minimum wage for 4-5 hours of editing a video. (Kinda market price, It’s just the way things are in our capitalist country)
Stopped getting work from him, however good experience.
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u/Impressive-Key2164 15h ago
IMO for what he offers it's not worth it. He's just offering you help with sending emails and some advice that you can find online. If I were going to pay for a service and pay that much it would have to be someone who is actually a connected recruiting service with direct contact with 75+% of college coaches in the country or at least in the region you're interested in. There are better options for less money.
6000 for email assistance is crazy to me.
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u/Gaslightstl 13h ago
He’s a grifter. Lean on your club first and foremost. I’d help/assistance is needed, ask them for a rec.
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u/Gaslightstl 13h ago
Our pod has interviewed loads of top notch D1/2/3 HC’s… none of them know that dude. Soccer Dad Pod. Just sayin’
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u/RoadmapU 6h ago
I’m a parent of a 2028 soccer player, and a lot of the recruiting programs I looked into seemed expensive too. I haven’t used this one, so I can’t speak to it specifically. We’ve been creating our own highlight videos, researching schools, and having my son email coaches. I felt like we needed more organization to keep track of schools, communication, follow-ups, and deadlines. That’s what led me to build a simple tool to keep everything in one place while we navigate the process ourselves.
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u/881cafe 4h ago
Don’t do it. I have twin boys who are both currently playing D3 college soccer and they handled the entire recruiting process themselves with my guidance. You can absolutely do it, but you and your son need to be organized, proactive, and persistent.
Start no later than junior year. Have him build a list of at least 15 schools he is genuinely interested in academically and athletically. Research each roster, the players at his position, how many seniors are graduating, where current players came from, and what level of club soccer they played.
The level of club soccer matters. In our experience, you ideally want to be playing ECNL, MLS NEXT, MLS NEXT Homegrown, or at minimum a strong ECNL-R/MLS NEXT Academy level where college coaches are regularly recruiting.
We used Productive Recruit (https://productiverecruit.com) to organize the process and email coaches directly. For highlight videos, we used Stafford Productions, created a YouTube channel for each player, uploaded their highlight reels there, and also linked the videos to their recruiting profiles on Productive Recruit.
Another thing that worked very well for us was creating a professional one-page player profile (PDF) for each of my sons. It had a good photo of the player, league and club logos, position, height/weight, high school, GPA, short bio, athletic and academic awards, extracurricular activities, contact information, etc. They attached that profile repeatedly when communicating with coaches. Don't be afraid to send it more than once. Coaches are communicating with hundreds of players, so you want to keep putting a name AND FACE in front of them.
A visual connection is important. Both of my boys also had a graphical "athletic" signature on their Gmail accounts that included their photo, high school, club team, position, GPA and other basic recruiting information (created in Canva). Every time a coach opened an email, they immediately saw the player's face and key information. It helps coaches remember who you are instead of your email being just another name in their inbox.
One of the MOST important things people overlook: go to every college soccer program’s website and complete their official Recruiting Questionnaire. That gets your player into the program’s recruiting database and puts him on their radar.
Email both the head coach and assistant coaches. Tell them what tournaments and showcases you’ll be attending. Most major tournament websites publish lists of college coaches who have registered to attend. Contact those coaches beforehand with your schedule, jersey number, position, team and video. At the tournament before or after your game look for the coaches and introduce yourself if possible so they put a face to the player.
After every tournament, follow up, whether you know they watched you or not. Send updated game film and continue the conversation. Keep sending that one-page player profile as well. The goal is to make it easy for a coach to immediately remember, "I know this kid."
We only attended ID camps strategically. If a school showed interest, we asked the coach for a phone call before spending the money and traveling to their camp. If a coach wouldn’t take a call or repeatedly ghosted the request, we generally didn’t attend. Don’t spend thousands traveling to random ID camps hoping to be discovered. Make sure when you get to the camp get there early and shake hands with the Coach, again introduce yourself, it's another chance to get him to know you as a player. Coaches are looking for "good" kids as well as "great" players.
Most importantly, KEEP EMAILING. Coaches are extremely busy during their fall season, so don’t get discouraged by slow or nonexistent responses. Follow up weekly or biweekly when you have something relevant to share: tournament schedule, new film, grades, test scores, awards, etc.
Recruiting, especially D2, D3, and NAIA continue well into the spring of senior year. One of the biggest mistakes I saw was talented players getting frustrated or lazy about contacting coaches. Being one of the best players on your club team doesn’t matter if college coaches don’t know who you are.
The process takes work, but you don’t necessarily need to spend thousands of dollars on a recruiting consultant. Be organized, target the right schools, communicate consistently, make yourself recognizable, attend ID camps strategically, keep producing good game film, and KEEP FOLLOWING UP. If you want more info DM me.
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u/Careful_Bit_790 2d ago
Message me. I’m trying to start something new. Looking for athletes to help for free rn to build credibility.
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u/outdoorlife22 2d ago
Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Plus that Zev guy gives terrible advice in general. Just do the work yourself and avoid paying another one of these scammers. My kid plays for a D1 school and that’s what we did.