Decorated NAIA head coach has a warning for NAIA players getting July calls from FBS, FCS, D-II coaches

Nick Davis has a warning for NAIA players getting that late July phone call from coaches of FBS, FCS, and Division II program.s

Every July, the phone rings for a certain kind of player. Not in January, when most rosters get built. Not in the spring, when the portal windows open and close and programs make their real evaluations. In July, with camp two weeks out and a scholarship number that still needs a body in it.

Ottawa University (NAIA - KS) head coach Nick Davis, a former AFCA 35 Under 35 selection and a popular speaker at the AFCA Convention, called out that pattern on X this week. His point: NAIA players get treated like they're not good enough for the higher levels, right up until those same higher level programs can't fill out their rosters with the transfer portal players they wanted to actually show up on campus. Then the calls start going out to fill scout team spots. 

His advice to players getting that call was blunt: if they wanted you in January, they would have signed you.

Davis has standing to make that point. He's been the head coach at Ottawa, an NAIA program in Kansas, since 2022, after a year as the Braves' defensive coordinator in 2021. Before that, he spent a decade at Rose-Hulman where he carved out a reputation as an elite defensive mind. 

Ottawa won the 2023 Bissell Division Championship and made the NAIA Football Championship Series that year, and in 2025 the Braves put together the second largest win turnaround in the country. This isn't a coach complaining from the outside. He's building rosters at this level every year and watching where his players end up.

The mechanics here aren't complicated. FBS and FCS staffs build their depth charts around the portal, and every cycle a handful of commitments fall through late for a variety of reasons. Instead of pulling a walk-on or moving a guy from another position group, some programs go back to the small school kids they passed on in the winter. Not for a real shot at meaningful reps but rather for bodies to run cards on the scout team in August.

That's not automatically a bad opportunity. Plenty of players have used a late walk-on offer to get seen, work, and eventually earn a real role. But Davis is right that the timeline should tell players something - if they're willing to put their ego to the side for a moment. A program that evaluated you in January and passed is telling you where they had you ranked. A call 13 days before camp is usually about a numbers problem, not a change of heart on your talent.

For NAIA players getting that call, the smart move is to absolutely to ask direct questions before saying yes. What's the actual role? Is there a scholarship attached, or is it a preferred walk-on spot or something else entirely? What's the realistic path up the depth chart, and has the staff been straight about it? 

A late opportunity can still be a good one. It just shouldn't be mistaken for the same opportunity it would have been back in January.

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