This suggestion and whether it will work has a lot to do with your athletic department culture and the football coaches.

A lot of what has worked for me is building positive relationships with the other coaches in my building, administration, and general student population. This takes a little while and won't see the change until a few years down the road. Little things like talking to the football coach about his games and athletes. Being really interested in seeing them succeed. I also send him many articles about how wrestling helps football and give him examples of how it does. This goes with every coach of every sport. We've just worked hard to make wrestling a "top shelf sport" in the school and for it to be viewed as a main sport like Basketball or Football is viewed. This has helped tremendously and at least half of our wrestlers play football in the fall. The freshman class is a big group to get a hold of. We start the year with 70 kids and I think what I explained earlier is a big reason why. It wasn't always like this in Dodge. I know the year before I took over the team ended with less than 20 wrestlers, maybe even less than 15. It takes some work and you have to butter up some people but it is worth it.

Like I said - it depends on your school culture and the people you have to work with as well.