Recruiting New Mexico: New Highlands coach sets goals (Part 4)
First-year New Mexico Highlands head coach Josh Kirkland is so passionate about recruiting in-state players from the Land of Enchantment he’s quantified his program’s goals in that area. “With every class, if I can get 20 percent of my New…
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Continue ReadingFirst-year New Mexico Highlands head coach Josh Kirkland is so passionate about recruiting in-state players from the Land of Enchantment he’s quantified his program’s goals in that area.
“With every class, if I can get 20 percent of my New Mexico signees to play and help us (I’d be happy), but in order to do that I need to sign 10 to 20 (NM players), Kirkland told Prep Redzone New Mexico recently. “We did the same thing when I was at Incarnate Word in San Antonio. We needed 20 percent of the San Antonio kids we signed to really play.
“That’s the same model I would like to follow here. I would always like to sign between 10 and 20 players from this state every year. But that might not mean straight out of high school. A couple of players might come from the junior college ranks. This past class, four of our New Mexico signees came from NMMI. There are other avenues.”
The process of building a football program with more New Mexico prospects began last spring when NMHU signed more than a dozen in-state players in the 2020 class, including multiple players from Las Vegas, Kirkland said.
Among the local signees was MacKenzie Ebell of Robertson High School and Estevan Gonzalez of West Las Vegas. Jack Truong from Eldorado High School in Albuquerque also signed with NMHU.
“The good thing is New Mexico as far as radius isn’t real big, so resource-wise we don’t need a ton of money to get out and do it,” said Kirkland, an assistant at Incarnate Word for three years before taking the NMHU reins in Las Vegas. “Recruiting is my life blood. The best players win games. Every day we have a staff meeting and every day we start the meeting with recruiting, even now during COVID.”
Signing in-state players is so important to Kirkland that every NMHU assistant has an assigned recruiting area in New Mexico. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in mid-March, Kirkland and his staff were going to go to every New Mexico high school.
“When we get out on the road recruiting, we’ll always start in New Mexico,” Kirkland said. “Our first three days to a week in New Mexico, hit every high school and get a good look at all the players so we know what we’re doing. If there’s a kid here that can play, we’re on him.
“I’m also big on watching games, so if they were playing right now we’d be everywhere watching games. That’s important.”
Kirkland has already started offering worthy New Mexico prospects in the 2021 and 2022 signing classes.
“I’ve already told some kids that they have a spot here if they want it,” Kirkland said. “If they get discovered by a bigger school, so be it. That happens all the time. But I want them to know they have a place here. I like kids that will come here and play with a chip on their shoulders. They have to love football and want to attack this game and are tough-minded and hardnosed. We find that in New Mexico.”
Once the COVID-19 pandemic is finally (and mercifully) over, one of the first things Kirkland plans to do is personally meet as many New Mexico high school coaches as he can.
“Recruiting is about relationships,” Kirkland said. “We have to be able to trust the high school coach that tells me Johnny can play or he can play but he has problems. We have to trust they’re giving us good information and they have to trust we’ll take care of their kids when they send them to us.”
Kirkland also wants to build a reliable pipeline from the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI) in Roswell, since that JUCO institution signs numerous New Mexico players every year.
“When we first got here and went to NMMI, they told us it was the first time somebody from New Mexico Highlands had stepped on their campus in five years,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland will need to rely on strong and trustworthy relationships to turn around a Cowboys program that has won two or fewer games four times in the last five seasons.
“The big thing here is changing the culture,” Kirkland said. “We’re looking to bring in kids that want to be a part of legacy that nobody else is going to be a part of. We haven’t been very good the past few years. I tell kids the only way is up and they can come here and compete for a starting job right away. Hopefully, in three or four years we’ll be competing for conference championships.”
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