[papagrit]

Doesn't the high school coach do anything to help kids get recruited.

The coaches forward on interest and put the kids names in for some places. The let the kids know who has called them and ask about the kids interest in schools to see if they should call the teams with interest back.
I put together my own son's highlight film after spending about 10/15 hours of rewatching gamefilm and editing and took care of the majority of it myself because I wanted to. The music version I have here at home is pretty cool! It will be something he can keep for when he is farting dust and chasing his own kids around at football games.
My kids wanted to go to a higher level academic college that offered engineering where they could play football. My two boys who were 6'4"/260 pounds and 6'1" 275 pounds at the time of recruitment and both linemen weren't realistically going to get in with the monsters of D-I and get to play any real time if they walked on. They were on the fringe of DI FCS size, of which Kentucky D-I FCS schools have no direct mechanical/chemical engineering programs. So, I went out farther with their recruitment to a national level. Tennesee had a few, but, the schools weren't on the academic level they were looking for. Visited six Ivy League schools, and they weren't liked by the schools that liked them it seemed. Passed on an official visit to Dartmouth after some runaround. They both have settled into an elite academic D-III school that offers engineering directly and the football program hasn't had but one or two losing seasons in the last twenty five years. It worked out to a good fit and the school is only 6 hours away which means we can be at the game if we leave in the morning early. By direct engineering, I mean they didn't have to go to school somewhere that has what they call a 3+2 program which actually entails 5 and half years to get an engineering degree and playing football. If a kid wants to play football at one of these schools, they attend 3 and half years so they can get in their senior year of football and then have to go two years to an engineering school, like at UK to finish for a total of 5 and half years for a four year degree.
There was an experience factor that I benefitted from greatly with the second son from the first son's recruitment and things went much easier and cheaper with him. I know one thing for sure, we didn't eat nearly as much recruiting bologna with the second son as the first. We could read the college coaches a lot better and tell what was fact, who was being straight up...and what was a snowjob with the younger boy.