ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
Outreach Log
Every message he sent · Every one nobody answered · Through August 28, 2026
All nine went to a program's general recruiting channel, addressed to a role rather than a person. That is the variable that changed in August, and it is the only thing that changed.
Eastern MichiganFBS · MAC
Central MichiganFBS · MAC
Western MichiganFBS · MAC
ToledoFBS · MAC
Ball StateFBS · MACHe changed exactly one variable. Instead of writing to a program, he found the individual whose job is teaching quarterbacks, wrote to that person by name, and opened with a coaching question about their own offence rather than a description of himself. Two of three answered inside four days. Every word of all three is on the correspondence page.
Ball StateFBS · MAC
Michigan StateFBS · Big Ten
WyomingFBS · Mountain WestSix messages, sent by an adult, using twenty-three years of personal relationships. Included here because it is the control group.
| Sent | Where | Relationship | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 30 | D-II assistant, out of state | Coached together in the 2000s | Replied "will look." Has not looked. |
| Aug 3 | Alma College (D-III) | Longtime friend | Replied warmly. Told Shaffer the boy should ring them in the spring if nothing better has turned up. Shaffer has not passed this along. |
| Aug 5 | Wayne State | Cold | No response |
| Aug 8 | Saginaw Valley State | Cold | No response |
| Aug 11 | Michigan HS coaches' network list | Peer | Two coaches wrote back to say the film impressed them. Neither has recruiting authority anywhere on earth. |
| Aug 18 | Former player, now a D-II GA | Coached him in 2016 | Said he would "put it in front of somebody." No follow-up. |
Twenty-three years of relationships, six messages, and the yield is one warm word from a Division III program that the player has not been told about. This is not a criticism of Paul Shaffer, who is the only adult in the building who tried. It is the size of what a good high school coach can actually do from inside a league nobody scouts.
| School | Level | Contact level | Offer | Public interest | Private belief | Next action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ball State | FBS · MAC | Two-way with Craig Harmon, QB coach. Three emails. Requested full-game film on a standing schedule. | None | Nothing public exists | Personally impressed. Explicitly cannot argue for him yet: no camp numbers, no read on the league, the frame. | A full game after every three played. He is watching Linden this month. |
| Wyoming | FBS · MW | Two-way with Christian Taylor, OC/QBs. Quizzed him on five concepts. Five for five. | None | None | Convinced the processing is real. Blunt that the 2027 board already has names on it and that Mansour would be "laughed out of the room" today. | Get to any camp with a stopwatch. Send games including the losses. |
| Michigan State | FBS · B1G | Questionnaire and email. Never opened. | None | None | Unaware he exists. Sixty-five miles away. | None |
| Grand Valley State | D-II | Outbound only. Film consumed thoroughly by a party who has not identified themselves. | None | None | Unknown — but somebody there spent forty-one minutes | Send full-game film unprompted after Week 2 |
| Eastern Michigan | FBS · MAC | On campus twice — for Chase Lynch. Opened the link once, watched 2:41. | None | None in Mansour | Does not register him as a prospect | Be visible when they come for Lynch |
| Ferris State | D-II | In contact with Fenton — about Lynch. Opened the link once. | None | None in Mansour | Unknown | Ask the Lynch contact to mention him |
| Central Michigan | FBS · MAC | Opened it. Watched fourteen seconds. | None | None | Dismissed at a glance, if it was ever considered at all | Hold until there is a 2026 result |
| Toledo / WMU / Wayne St. / Youngstown St. | Mixed | No engagement of any kind | None | None | Unaware | Re-send in October with a record attached |
| Alma College | D-III | Warm, through Shaffer's personal relationship. Nick does not know this exists. | None | None public | Genuinely interested if nothing better happens | Shaffer is sitting on it |
| The Mitten Board regional media | Evaluator | Aware of the name. Declined to rank. Stated his conditions in print. | — | Publicly noncommittal | Curious, unconvinced, and honest about why | 5–0 in October plus full-game film |
Nobody.
Jeff Setzke did not know his quarterback had been writing to college programs until Wednesday, August 26, when Paul Shaffer mentioned it in passing while they were discussing something else. Two months after the first email went out.
Shaffer's account of the reaction: "He goes, 'he's doing what.' Not mad. Just — 'he's doing what,' then a second of nothing, then 'okay,' and then we were talking about the punt team again."
The two coaches disagree about it and did not resolve the disagreement.
"If the adults here were doing the job he would not be writing his own letters. I've said that to Jeff. I'll say it again." He considers it faintly humiliating for the adults, himself included, and has not attempted to soften that.
A seventeen-year-old writing to college staffs without his head coach knowing is a program-control problem, independent of whether the emails were any good. "Nobody is telling him to stop. I'd have liked to know. Those are two separate sentences and everybody insists on running them together."
"I knew in July." Asked why he had not told Setzke: "He asked me not to. He is seventeen, he asked me not to, and it was not a safety issue. What would you have done."
None of the three has raised it with him. As of Friday's kickoff, Nick does not know that any of them know.
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