Gritty OS
Send us three clips
For football student-athletes & their families

One offer is a wild card. Several offers give you options.

We help your student-athlete find the colleges where he fits — how strong the academics are, how likely he is to get in, how likely he is to play, and what four years will cost — and talk to enough of them at once that he finishes with real choices, and gets to make one.

Start with a free evaluation See where to start
Why the timing matters

College coaches form their opinion months before recruiting gets loud.

The schools with the best academics and the most generous aid begin checking a student's transcript in January and February of junior year, as soon as the junior season ends. By the June pre-read, the list of students they are looking at is largely set. Waiting is not neutral — the schools that decide last are, as a rule, the ones with the least to offer.

  1. Junior fallFBSMost big-program offers are out by December of junior year.
  2. Jan–Feb, junior yearFirst transcript checkHigh-academic programs start reading grades right after junior season. The earliest real gate.
  3. Jr spring → Sr fallFCS & D2Committable offers with real financial aid numbers build through the spring and into senior season.
  4. June, rising senior summerThe official pre-readAcademic standing is confirmed. First commitments happen here.
Where to start

Pick the question you need answered first.

Each of these works on its own. Most families take one, run with it, and decide later whether they want more help.

FreeFree

The 48-Hour Division Evaluation

Is he a college recruit, and at what level?

  • The level he realistically projects to — FCS, D2, D3, or not yet
  • Whether his position helps or hurts him. Line and secondary spots carry three to four roster openings a year; quarterback and running back carry one or two
  • The next date on his calendar that matters, and what has to be ready by then
You send
3 clips
Turnaround
48 hours
Send us three clips
Seven days$249

The Aid Reality Check

What will the schools on our list actually cost?

  • Ten schools from your list, priced out — what four years is likely to cost after merit aid and the admissions boost football gives him
  • What each kind of aid means at that school — merit scholarships, institutional grants, need-based aid, and how student and parent loans differ
  • The schools where the money does not work, no matter what happens on the field
You send
Transcript + list
Turnaround
Seven days
Start the Reality Check
Two weeks$750

The Film Audit & College List Plan

Where does he fit, and how do we get there before June?

  • Film evaluation and an honest read on his level — including the programs where he is a genuine catch rather than a long shot
  • A ranked list of schools worth his time — on academics, admission odds, playing time, and cost. Not on name recognition
  • The academic deadlines he has to clear — transcript reads, senior course load, testing
  • Camps worth attending, camps to skip, chosen against the list
  • Who to write, in what order, and what to say
You send
Film, transcript, list
Turnaround
Two weeks
Start the Plan
If you want to go further

Most families take the Plan and run the year themselves — it is built to work that way. If you'd rather we ran the year with you, the full $750 comes off the price. No deadline on that and no obligation either way.

Talk about the full year
Results

Real choices, not one long shot.

Gritty OS has served nine student-athletes across three cycles. All nine achieved placements at targeted colleges — Carleton, Tufts, Trinity, Bentley, St. Lawrence — and every one finished with more than one school to choose from. Most needed financial aid to get there.

Class of 2027

Admissions earned by the student-athletes we advised

  • Tufts University
  • Carleton College
  • Trinity College
  • Bentley University
  • St. Lawrence University
  • Case Western Reserve
  • Oberlin College
  • Muhlenberg College
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Bates College
  • Macalester College

Class of 2026

Admissions earned by the student-athletes we advised

  • Union College

Class of 2025

Admissions earned by the student-athletes we advised

  • Hobart and William Smith Colleges
71Division III programs in our database admit fewer than 60% of applicants
~$20Ka year: the median merit scholarship at the 46 of them that award merit aid
22of them commit to meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need

Division III offers no athletic scholarships — which is exactly why families overlook it. Figures from the Gritty OS database, 2025–26; directional planning figures, not guarantees.

Get started

Tell us about your student-athlete

No call required and no obligation. We'll reply by email with exactly what to send next. Every read is done by hand, not by software, so we take a limited number each week.

Gritty OS works alongside your son's high school coach and college counseling office — extending their reach, never replacing it. Cost and outcome figures are planning estimates built from each school's published data, not guarantees and not financial aid advice. Placement figures describe students Gritty OS has advised and are not a prediction of any individual outcome.

Who runs Gritty OS

A coach saved my college education. So I built the platform I wished I'd had — for the families who deserve it.

Playing big-time college football was my childhood dream.

But a week before my senior year of high school football began, I broke my foot.

Big dreams and plans evaporated overnight.

But I had something most folks don't have, a legendary coach.

Not only was my high school coach a caring mentor to hundreds of student-athletes, but he also served as our athletic director and a guidance counselor. I have never known a better-connected coach nor someone who did more to change the lives of high school student-athletes. He made one phone call to a college coach and changed my life.

Times have changed. High school athletics have too. The college recruiting process is almost unrecognizable. The system has too many cracks, and far too many young athletes are falling through them.

I recognize the challenges facing my athletes. They know college football destinations but are unclear on the road that leads to them. Some have parents and coaches who can navigate the system. They land at selective schools that change lives. The ones without spend years searching for opportunities in places where they rarely materialize.

I built Gritty OS to close that gap.

The recruiting intelligence available only to the most connected coaches and counselors — fit modeling, financial analysis, process coordination, conference-by-conference timing — should be available to every student-athlete at every high school. Especially the ones the recruiting process overlooks.

I had someone who looked out for me. Gritty OS provides the same coverage in a new era.

That's the company. That's the mission. If your son deserves better than the default path, I'd like to hear about him.

Chris Conroy

Founder & Managing Director, Gritty OS

Tell us about your student-athlete