High school football players are five months away from being able to put pen to paper on their National Letters of Intent.

That’s not the case, though, for athletes making plans to play for any of the eight Ivy League programs.

While most colleges in the U.S. – including all 128 Football Bowl Subdivision and many Football Championship Subdivision universities – offer athletic scholarships to potential student-athletes, Ivy League schools do not.

“The obvious difference is the Ivy’s focus on academics being the main factor in how they recruit,” Beck Sharpe of Collegiate Sports Data said. “The FBS schools typically look for the best players and then check grades, where the Ivy programs locate players with grades and then evaluate that group to find a best fits for their football program.”

Collegiate Sports Data is a Nashville-based recruiting service that helps college coaches stay appraised of potential recruits across the country.

But even though athletic scholarships are off the table, potential Ivy League athletes are included in the pool with potential students for academic scholarships.

 “In addition to the massive data collection efforts, our scouting division will be analyzing the player’s ability on the field and providing that ‘filtered’ content to the college coaches as well,” Sharpe said. “Our main goal is to put easy to access and credible data in front of the college coaches for them to access and begin their internal evaluation process.”

In 2014, Harvard finished its season 10-0 and won the Ivy League – all with student-athletes who qualified through the school’s rigorous application process.

High school students applying to Harvard must fill out a college application; complete secondary questionnaires; complete the SAT or ACT with writing; complete two additional SAT subject tests; submit a school report with high school transcript; and submit two teacher reports, a mid-year school report and a final school report.

Even after all of that, admission is far from guaranteed. For Harvard’s 2015 class, a total of 37,307 students applied but only 2,081 were admitted.

By comparison, the student application process for the 2015 FBS national champion Ohio State includes a school application and meeting certain GPA and ACT/SAT scores.

“Both athletic ability and academic ability are checked,” Sharp said. “Just in this case they are checked in different order. Also, the Ivy programs must really research and understand the player’s ability to be challenged in the classroom and balance their course studies with their athletic responsibilities as well.

“Scouting must also take into account the ‘band’ structure of the Ivy programs and how they must balance their highest academic targets against the marginal academic target who may be a better player or fit for their football team.”

For Ivy League student-athletes, being on academic scholarships instead of athletic is both a blessing and a curse. While they will compete against everyone else applying to a certain school, they can withdraw from an athletic team and keep financial support to continue their education.

While the recruiting process for bigger Division I schools gets earlier and earlier, it’s not like that for the FCS, which includes the Ivy League

“Sometimes there may be a circumstance that exists where an Ivy may target a ninth grader, but it will be more an exception than the rule,” Sharpe said. “The Ivy schools will usually focus their efforts on the junior and senior classes in terms of evaluating them as football prospects. They may start earlier on the academic data collection, but like the vast majority of the FCS programs, they usually focus on senior and junior prospects.”

SEE ALSO: Visit Ivy Coach for more information on Ivy League admission

Photo courtesy of GoCrimson.com