by Avi - It's a familiar refrain -- something that's said over and over in college coaches' offices: "How did we miss that kid?!" College coaches spend 50% of their time on recruiting and yet many qualified athletes are still being missed.

This is one of seven findings from an exhaustive study of college recruiting that we just finished. We spent months interviewing 40 coaches from colleges that span the academic and athletic spectrum and assembling what, as far as we can tell, is the first in-depth study of the recruiting process.

One of the most remarkable things we heard was coach after coach telling us that they spend as much time recruiting as they do actually coaching their teams. Despite the Herculean effort they put into recruiting, college coaches are frustrated by the number of athletes who are good enough to play in college who are being missed altogether.