Recruiting

[wareagle]

I spent my first season for this demo wanting to take a bottom feeder in a conference to guage the "easy/hard" level of play. Taking Baylor, I must say it was an extreme struggle finishing 2-9 (0-8) only beating UAB and North Texas. The recruiting is way more difficult than anticipated. I assume that a large reason for this is having a low prestige team that finished 2-9 in a conference/state with the likes of Texas, OU, A&M, etc.... Other teams were getting early signings and I did not get my first signing until week 15. I believe the first 15 or so players I offered scholarships to went on to other schools mostly in the conference. It will be very nice getting to move onto a next season and seeing some of the recruits that snubbed me play against my team. Adds that level of personal vengeance for the future :D The recruiting screens will take some getting used to and how players are recruited will take some learning. Will a more in-depth tutorial come out on recruiting?

[gopokes]

I agree recruiting was more difficult than expected. I took over Wyoming and I went 5-7 (2-6). I got an early recruit from a guy who said that he went to camp with one of my players earlier and he got to know them and wanted to come to my school but that was about it. I only had 4 signings the whole recruiting period but had 13 scholarships to offer. I really need to learn how the recruiting process works or I'm going to get fired in a heartbeat.

[Spursab]

I'm struggling with how this process works as well. Playing as Texas after simming through a season in which the team went 8-4, we didn't see anyone commit until stage 6 and were only able to get 7 commits total. I would have expected more players to be interested, but they opted for everywhere but Austin.

[Cardinal Rule]

I experienced the same thing - took Nevada (umm, OK, yes, that was my mistake because I was trying to take Nebraska :) ) and went 2-10, then only got one recruit to commit before the final stage and one more the final stage of recruiting. I had several more 1- and 2-star recruits that were listed in my recruiting report that I had a very good shot at them but they signed elsewhere. I focused mostly on recruits from my region and just a couple others, the one 2-star recruit I got was from the southeast, the 1-star that committed to me was from the west (my region). I agree recruiting is a very big challenge.

[FSUfan]

How are you guys doing with recruiting Transfers, I didn't get a single one and I played with....WELL you know (look above) and I went 9-3 (5-3). I haven't even attempted recruiting yet.

[st.cronin]

In multiple seasons with different teams (from Notre Dame to New Mexico State) I've never gotten a single transfer. I have lost quite a few playing as a good team.

[SkyDog]

These are my observations on recruiting so far. Not sure that these are all 100% dead-on-balls-accurate yet, but they are strong impressions that I've gotten so far... [list] [*]I've stopped bothering with guys whose initial interest isn't 6 or better (although in the current class, due to a couple of guys not committing, I had a guy jump from 4 in Week 12 to 8 in Week 13 when I offered a scholly and got his recruit pitch dead-on.) [*]PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Yes, it is going to require some writing and cypherin' outside of the game. It is too deep not to do so. [*]Decide how much you want to spend per position, and stick to it. [*]At a big school, the above may mean going after that 3-star in-state guy with 1500 effort, using "Location" as your pitch, and not scouting him, rather than spending a total of 4000 on scouting and max effort on a 4-star in-region guy. [*]Similarly, if you're a smaller school, think two-start in-state guys. [*]If you have an offer for a 3 or 4 star out-of-state guy on the table, also spend a little bit recruiting a 2 or 3 star in-state guy who has 10 interest. You might need him as a backup. [*]Accept visits on your scholly offers with 8 and 9 interest first, then your 10's afterward. [*]If you want to take a calculated stab at a guy who might be a 5-7 interest but looks to be "out of your league," talent-wise, pay attention to his interest schools to make an educated guess on pitch. If he's from your state, but has several big-time out-of-region schools on his list, then forget it: Prestige or Chance to Win are probably pretty important to him. If every interested school is in-region, take a stab at "Location" in the very first week, and don't bother to spend the money on scouting him. [*]Don't forget that your recruiting actions on a player remain in place until you remove them. In other words, if you've already signed a RB and don't intend to sign any more, stop recruiting your backup option and spend that money elsewhere. [*]Similarly, even if you have a good-looking offer on the table to a player at a given position, make sure you check up on the proper recruiting pitch for your backup option(s). Even if you're only spending the minimum on a backup option, it helps to do it with an enticing pitch. [*]Got two offers on the table at a position and you find out you've nailed the "correct" pitch for one of 'em and he's a "10" interest? That sounds like a great opportunity to spend that money elsewhere. [/list] Thoughts?

[dime]

those are all good guidelines...I think everyone is struggling with the adjustment to recruiting in BBCF as opposed to what we're "used to" from the EA franchises. even if you're texas or fsu, you can't just pick all 4 and 5 star players and land 75% of them. you'll be able to get some superstars, but the 2 and 3 star guys are what will be the bulk of your class. if you don't plan accordingly, you can get burned.

[Huckleberry]

[QUOTE=dime]those are all good guidelines...I think everyone is struggling with the adjustment to recruiting in BBCF as opposed to what we're "used to" from the EA franchises. even if you're texas or fsu, you can't just pick all 4 and 5 star players and land 75% of them. you'll be able to get some superstars, but the 2 and 3 star guys are what will be the bulk of your class. if you don't plan accordingly, you can get burned.[/QUOTE] I agree to an extent. 3 and 4 star guys are the bulk of the big boys' classes. Right now Texas has 24 commitments. 2 5 star, 10 4 star, 12 3 star, 0 2 star. Notre Dame - 22, 2, 7, 12, 1 (2 star is a kicker) Georgia - 23, 1, 9, 12, 1 No doubt there will be 2 stars at big schools. But when there are only 15-17 in a class, there really shouldn't be a time when an Excellent prestige team has to take more than 2 or 3. For a 16 player class at an Excellent prestige school, the breakdown should be, on average, 1 5 star, 7 4 stars, 7 3 stars, 1 2 star. Something like that is best, IMO.

[BYU 14]

[QUOTE=Huckleberry]I agree to an extent. 3 and 4 star guys are the bulk of the big boys' classes. Right now Texas has 24 commitments. 2 5 star, 10 4 star, 12 3 star, 0 2 star. Notre Dame - 22, 2, 7, 12, 1 (2 star is a kicker) Georgia - 23, 1, 9, 12, 1 No doubt there will be 2 stars at big schools. But when there are only 15-17 in a class, there really shouldn't be a time when an Excellent prestige team has to take more than 2 or 3. For a 16 player class at an Excellent prestige school, the breakdown should be, on average, 1 5 star, 7 4 stars, 7 3 stars, 1 2 star. Something like that is best, IMO.[/QUOTE] A agree totally, but again the planning and effort must be there which is why I really like recruiting in this game. Even USC could not just call the best QB in the land, offer him a schollie and wait for him to commit. I think in my experience so far, this game does a great job of balancing initial interest from the recruits. It is then up to you to do the work to land the players you should land.

[Spursab]

[QUOTE=Huckleberry]I agree to an extent. 3 and 4 star guys are the bulk of the big boys' classes. Right now Texas has 24 commitments. 2 5 star, 10 4 star, 12 3 star, 0 2 star. Notre Dame - 22, 2, 7, 12, 1 (2 star is a kicker) Georgia - 23, 1, 9, 12, 1 No doubt there will be 2 stars at big schools. But when there are only 15-17 in a class, there really shouldn't be a time when an Excellent prestige team has to take more than 2 or 3. For a 16 player class at an Excellent prestige school, the breakdown should be, on average, 1 5 star, 7 4 stars, 7 3 stars, 1 2 star. Something like that is best, IMO.[/QUOTE] Thanks for the info Huckleberry. I wasn't sure what an average recruiting class looked like. Your post goes a long way towards what I should be expecting.

[albionmoonlight]

I have had almost no chance to play with the demo, so forgive in advance what I assume to be a pretty easy question set. Do recruits care if you have talented freshman or other recruits at their position? If so, are their expecations moderated based on the offense/defense that you run? A run-n-shoot team may have lots of playing time available to a prospect, even if there are other young WRs on the roster.

[SkyDog]

Generally speaking, I'd think of "star" recruit classes looking something like this: (EDIT: Grrrrrr....durn wrestling fans and their necessitating of no HTML over here....) LINK: [url]http://fof.sportplanet.gamespy.com/forums/showpost.php?p=975261&postcount=567[/url]

[MirageAg99]

Found an odd thing the last week of recruiting. I had several players that according to my recruiting service, I was the only one pursuing. However, after the last week was over, the players disappeared. They didn't commit to me or anyone else and they were not academic ineligible. I've already posted it in the bugs forum, but since the traffic there is low, i was wondering if anyone else had seen that? Because of the disappearing recruits, I only have 7 recruits and not the 12-13 I needed. My recruiting service was Lone Star (the best in the great plains)

[Tim Plum]

don't worry MirageAg99 Arlie reads all the forums so 1 post is enough, besides the testers repost many of these to him in the beta forum.

[MirageAg99]

I'm not worried about Arlie, I'm just curious if anyone else had seen something simular.

[johnmcc]

[QUOTE=MirageAg99]Found an odd thing the last week of recruiting. I had several players that according to my recruiting service, I was the only one pursuing. However, after the last week was over, the players disappeared. They didn't commit to me or anyone else and they were not academic ineligible. I've already posted it in the bugs forum, but since the traffic there is low, i was wondering if anyone else had seen that? Because of the disappearing recruits, I only have 7 recruits and not the 12-13 I needed. My recruiting service was Lone Star (the best in the great plains)[/QUOTE] I saw this tonight actually, I was told they are 0 schools recruiting this player and i stand a good chance of getting him. I saw another one like this that said i was on the outside looking in, but there were 0 schools reportedly looking at this recruit, who I lost by the way.

[Another Mike D]

I fiddled with the demo as Boise State and after finishing 8-4 with a nice bowl win, I tried my hand in recruiting. It was tough but I ended up with a decent QB, a 4* C, three 4* safeties, and a few 3* LBs. My question is this, once you put an effort on a guy and the email tells you you're wasting your time, do you continue to spend money on this dude? I ask because I try removing them from the watch and doing everything, but each week it tells me the same thing (so and so is out of your league). Also, if I am close to a guy, it tells me to keep up the effort...do I have to do anything more? I can't increase my spending on that guy, right? It just seems very confusing with the emails and I have no idea what the "effort" column is. Even in guys that I'm not interested in and try to clear everything, it stil goes up.

[dime]

[QUOTE=Another Mike D] My question is this, once you put an effort on a guy and the email tells you you're wasting your time, do you continue to spend money on this dude?[/QUOTE] yes, removing them from the watch just takes them off the list. to stop spending money on the guy you need to "clear effort" on that player. [quote] Also, if I am close to a guy, it tells me to keep up the effort...do I have to do anything more? I can't increase my spending on that guy, right? [/quote] depending on your proximity to the recruit, you'll have a number of options for how much "effort" (money) you want to spend on recruiting the player. The max amount (3000?) doesn't change. as for the emails, they don't know whether or not you're spending the max on a guy -- big schools may target a ton of guys with just 2000 and then whittle down their list and spend 3000 on the remaining targets. again, we've had about a dozen new builds in beta since the demo version so a lot of these issues have probably been resolved. arlie is putting out a new version every other day, so it's hard for us to tell when something was fixed or not -- we're always using the latest version when testing. hope that cleared some things up for you.

[Spursab]

I ran into this problem as well. It would be useful to effectively clear all connections to a player (scouting, money spent, etc.) upon having that player taken off the watch list. This would make for fewer clicks and a more streamlined process.

[Another Mike D]

Thanks. I have no idea how to "clear effort" on a player. When I hit that button, the number seems to increase anyway each week...maybe it's a bug. Also, the money I allocate for individual positions before the season, what does that affect? Because when I'm recruiting, I just have a set amount to last me the recruiting period, not per position.

[Druez]

[QUOTE=albionmoonlight]I have had almost no chance to play with the demo, so forgive in advance what I assume to be a pretty easy question set. Do recruits care if you have talented freshman or other recruits at their position? If so, are their expecations moderated based on the offense/defense that you run? A run-n-shoot team may have lots of playing time available to a prospect, even if there are other young WRs on the roster.[/QUOTE] Yes albion they do. If you have a stud young stud RB and a talented older RB you will notice that almost all rb's in that draft class have a lower then normal interest in your program.

[Druez]

[QUOTE=MirageAg99]Found an odd thing the last week of recruiting. I had several players that according to my recruiting service, I was the only one pursuing. However, after the last week was over, the players disappeared. They didn't commit to me or anyone else and they were not academic ineligible. I've already posted it in the bugs forum, but since the traffic there is low, i was wondering if anyone else had seen that? Because of the disappearing recruits, I only have 7 recruits and not the 12-13 I needed. My recruiting service was Lone Star (the best in the great plains)[/QUOTE] Mirage, this has been fixed. If I remember this correctly, there was an issue with players who only had one offer were bugged. Basicly, if you only had one offer on a player, the player treated it like there was no offers on him at all. Since this has been fixed, i've picked up about 3 or 4 more recruits per incoming class.

[Huckleberry]

[QUOTE=Druez]Mirage, this has been fixed. If I remember this correctly, there was an issue with players who only had one offer were bugged. Basicly, if you only had one offer on a player, the player treated it like there was no offers on him at all. Since this has been fixed, i've picked up about 3 or 4 more recruits per incoming class.[/QUOTE] Excellent news. I'm looking forward to the new demo and obviously the game as well. I first dug into recruiting a couple of classes last night. Using Air Force at Below Average prestige in one of them I only signed 5 players. The balance only had offers from me so I was wondering about this. Fortunately I know how to use a search function so I didn't make a new thread about it. ;) Anyway, with a Below Average school I signed 0 5-stars, 0 4-stars, 4 3-stars, and 1 2-star. I was in the running on a few 4 star guys at one stage but some big schools came in with offers late. Upsetting as a coach but not as a simulation, of course. If I recall correctly I had 15 schollies available. Seems like I was the only offer late on 2 more 3 star players and 8 2 star guys. So my class overall would have been fairly decent with maybe one or two 1-star guys necessary because of late offers on my better recruits.

[SkyDog]

Recruiting is now a completely different experience.