Football recruiting's public displays of affection

• College coaches are papering prospects with handwritten letters%2C which often end up online
• The recruiting strategy seems to be connecting with prospects
• Some coaches also use social media in somewhat outlandish ways

Drew Barker's mailbox overflows with letters from states across the South, handwritten and in the hundreds, all with the intent of influencing the high school senior-to-be's college decision.

Barker is a four-star quarterback prospect at Conner High School in Hebron, Ky., a player that a number of Southeastern Conference schools and others hope to land on national signing day in early 2014. He says he knows each was written by a coach because of the penmanship. "Coaches have really sloppy handwriting," he says.

In the era of Facebook, Twitter, text-messaged hellos and 24-7 recruiting coverage, ink on paper still has an impact.

"I went to the mailbox and I was literally shocked," Barker said of a 115-letter delivery from Kentucky. "They all came in bundles. They were in rubber bands, about 15 per bundle, and when I opened the mailbox two of them fell out."

It took Barker an hour simply to open everything and another two days to read it all -- and the hook worked. "It definitely makes an impact on me," he said. "I mean, it's just so memorable and it really makes me feel special."

For teams and coaches, the primary goal is to have the letters resonate with the recipient. What's secondary – but still important – is that the recruit shares the good news, going to a social media outlet like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to spread the recruiting gospel.

Barker, like other high-profile prospects, doesn't just read his letters – he shares them. After receiving 102 from Mississippi State on April 5, Barker posted a picture of his delivery, the letters neatly arranged in rows, on Twitter and Instagram.

His picture was shared, retweeted and posted on blogs, message boards and recruiting sites, not only raising Barker's profile but also plugging Mississippi State's recruiting efforts.

"I was talking to a coach at South Carolina," Barker said, "and he told me that he was just gonna send me one letter with nothing but '116' written on it. I thought that was pretty funny."

'Director of hype' to woo recruits

Like Barker, running back Devante Downs of Lynwood, Wash., took a picture of the 101 letters he received from Oregon State and coach Mike Riley; his picture, posted on Twitter, was shared more than 25 times.

Joliet, Ill., linebacker Clifton Garrett's Instagram of 54 recruiting letters from Mississippi – his haul from coach Hugh Freeze and his staff dwarfed the single mailers from Arizona State, Notre Dame, Georgia, Nebraska and Iowa – was retweeted 87 times.

"You're going to hit the kids that are hitting social media," said Chris Spognardi, assistant to Tennessee head football coach Butch Jones and one of the leaders of the program's newfound effort to widen its social media impact.

"A certain kid from Georgia: We know he's a very active social-media guy on Twitter," Spognardi said. "So when we sent him the 102 letters we knew within days that he's going to send these out – send out pictures. Every single time we've done it, it's hit the media. ... One, you want them to start saying, 'Hey, I want to get the 102 letters.' The next thing you know, they get it, and they're going to post it. And the next thing you know, it gets legs and takes off."

Florida wide receivers coach Joker Phillips and offensive coordinator Brent Pease have embraced Twitter as a recruiting tool, placing pictures of themselves, phrases and hashtags onto scenes from recent films such as The Dark Knight and some that predate the birth of high school players.

Pease sent out a tweet Monday with his face superimposed onto Tom Cruise's body from 1986's Top Gun – Pease sitting up in the cockpit of a fighter jet, in uniform, giving out a thumbs-up. "Searching for ALL types of Top Guns," read Pease's tweet.

The tweet drew a response from Kyle Gallup, a sophomore quarterback at Chaparral High School in Parker, Colo., who replied, "would love to be one for you coach!!"

"I think they're doing that right," said Gallup, who lists Florida as his dream school. "People and high school athletes, we're always on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook."

The SEC as a whole has embraced the benefits of social media to cast a wider recruiting net, although the league isn't alone. USC coach Lane Kiffin recently sent wide receiver Justin Brent, a Notre Dame verbal commit, an autographed puzzle featuring All-American wide receiver Marqise Lee. It was a gesture Brent shared on his Instagram account, calling it "pretty neat," although not swaying his commitment from the Fighting Irish.

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Jordan Moore, USC's director of social media, said Kiffin and his staff are "always trying to stay on the cutting edge, trying to find the next way to approach student-athletes or to market the program and put their best foot forward there."

"As a director of social media, you're sort of a 'director of hype' also," Moore said. "That's what we do, and we're well aware that our social presence is obviously focused on a demographic that is the younger demographic. And that obviously includes prospective student-athletes, but it includes everybody in that younger demographic, too."

Creating shareable content is "the name of the game," Moore said. "Going viral, obviously, anything that you do, you want to try to create content that's going to get people to click that button, click the retweet button. And that's really how the brand spreads and that's how you grow your fan base and your audience."

Recruiting still all about relationships

But old school – handwritten notes, delivered in bulk – still strikes a chord, harkening to recruiting eras where nearly all contact occurred in person, on campus or in the living room, or via mail.

"The big thing is, when they get a piece of mail, I want them to keep wanting to open it," said Mississippi State defensive coordinator Geoff Collins. "The second a kid gets a piece of mail that is boring or isn't relative to what he's going through or that he (doesn't find) exciting or interesting, he's going to stop opening your mail. And once he stops opening your mail or receiving your messages then you can send out 8 billion more letters, it doesn't matter – he's not going to open them."

Collins' recruiting letters often include hand-drawn pictures, much like the can of "swag" he drew for Hoover, Ala., cornerback Marlon Humphrey. "I've got a Truck Load over here in Stark Vegas," Collins wrote, referring to Starkville, home to Mississippi State's campus. Another recent note said to a recruit simply, "You're a baller."

"My thing is just trying to be as creative as I can to generate interest in the school, to generate interest in me as a recruiter or as a person so they'll want to get to know me better, as well," Collins said.

Simple recruiting letters alleviate the pressure to respond that can come with Twitter or Facebook messages, Collins said.

"It just depends on the kid," he said. "But with some kids it makes an impact. They can show it to their mom, they can show it to their friends. If you get a funny handwritten letter, you'll show that to your buddies or your whole senior class. 'Hey, look what Coach did.' There's a little more freedom in that.

"When you're allowed to go into the homes, a lot of kids' places, it looks like Geoff Collins did the wallpaper in their rooms. My mailings or drawings or whatever nonsense I might be sending at the time, all (are) on their fridge."

At its most basic level, regardless of the mode of communication – handwritten letters, Twitter, Facebook – successful recruiting hinges on the connection built between a prospect and a coaching staff.

"Recruiting is still all about relationships," Spognardi said. "At the end of the day, if you have the better relationship, you're going to have, more than likely, the better chance of getting that recruit. So we're still making up a little bit of ground. But as you can see from our success so far, we're doing something right."

Collins' drawing opened the door for Mississippi State with Humphrey, rated a five-star cornerback prospect by Rivals.com and the No. 10 national recruit in the class of 2014.

"I thought it was pretty cool and really interesting," Humphrey said. "I thought it was special because someone took the time to draw it. It was in a joking manner but a cool way to make you think about making a visit, which I, for sure, plan on doing after not making it this season.

"I usually don't even open my mail, but for some reason I did that day and I was happy I did. I didn't show anyone besides my parents – and Twitter, of course."

Contributing: Scott Allen

Paul Myerberg is on Twitter @PaulMyerberg. Jason Jordan is on Twitter @JayJayUSATODAY.

PHOTOS: EXTREME RECRUITING