Small School Handbook

[mkpeak]

This is not a carved in stone model to follow...simply a guide to help out. [B][U][CENTER]SMALL SCHOOL HANDBOOK[/CENTER][/U][/B] Running a successful Bowl Bound College Football program really isn’t all that different from the real world. Since I have not signed up for any leagues and most likely won’t be this year, I have put together this guide to help those who don’t have the “Football” knowledge that some others may have to help even the playing field without giving away all of the secrets. [B][U]BUDGET & RECRUITING SERVICE[/U][/B] 1) Year 1: a) The coaching staff is already set so there’s nothing you can do here. b) Scouting service isn’t critical since you will most likely not have much recruiting success outside your region. c) Now it’s time to decide if you want to try to win games in year 1 or just try to survive the season while focusing on your first recruiting class. (It would be a good idea to evaluate your roster and the rosters for your scheduled conference opponents to get a gauge for how your season might unfold.) d) If you choose to try to win games you will need to put money into Scouting College Offense & Defense, Advance Scouting, Academics (need to keep your players eligible), and Medical Training (need to keep your players on the field). e) If you decide to simply try to survive your first season and focus on recruiting you will want to put money into your region while minimizing spending outside your region. You will want to determine your teams recruiting needs with respect to the depth chart and focus your positional budget dollars into your targeted positions and prioritize based on need. f) Finally, don’t forget to allocate dollars to Strength & Conditioning as this will help develop your players over the season and into the next season. [B][U]SET OFFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY (SCHEME)[/U][/B] Here it’s best to either go with your Offensive Coordinators Preferred Philosophy (Scheme) since he knows it best or one that will get your best players on the field. Try to achieve both. [B][U]SET DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY (SCHEME)[/U][/B] Here it’s best to either go with your Defensive Coordinators Preferred Philosophy (Scheme) since he knows it best or one that will get your best players on the field. Try to achieve both. [B][U]NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULING[/U][/B] You must raise your Prestige Level. This means you need to win games. Look for opponents you can compete with or beat. The key here is to know your team strengths/weaknesses and try to take advantage of your strengths without exposing your weaknesses. (For example, unless you have a good pass rush and a secondary that’s good in pass coverage try to avoid pass oriented teams. Also, if you run a smash-mouth offense, look for teams that run a pass or coverage oriented defense. Remember, all things being equal football is a lot like a chess game.) [B][U]ASSIGN RED-SHIRTS[/U][/B] You need to develop players and most likely don’t have the best coaching staff around. Red-shirt as many Freshmen as possible. Unless a Freshman is clearly one of your better players at his position (either a starter or clearly the top back-up) it’s best to red-shirt him. This will give him another year of development. [B][U]REGULAR SEASON[/U][/B] 1) Scout each opponent before you play them. 2) Take notes as to their Offensive & Defensive Philosophies (Schemes), identify their weaknesses on offense and defense, and know their tendencies. 3) Get your coaches input (use the suggest & save buttons) and then tweak the Offensive & Defensive Game Plans, and the Offensive & Defensive Strategies as you see fit. [B][U]CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS[/U][/B] “See Regular Season” [B][U]POSTSEASON BOWL GAMES[/U][/B] “See Regular Season” [B][U]JOB OFFERS[/U][/B] There’s really not much to say here other than stay or leave. It’s up to you. [B][U]HIRE/FIRE STAFF[/U][/B] In the early years of building a program player development is not the most important quality since you most likely don’t have many players with high quality potential. As long as your coaches’ player development ratings are average or better your players will development just fine over 3 or 4 years. Red-shirting Freshmen helps in this area as well. The most important qualities to find in coaches are Player Scouting, Game Plan and Motivation. Player scouting is important because it provides you with an accurate assessment of your players & your opponents players; and better depth chart recommendations or decisions (if delegating to coaches). Game Plan is important because it provides you with better input from your coaches, better game plans when delegating the Game Plan to your coaches, and better results when simulating games. Motivation is important because it can help you get the most out of lesser talented players. [B][U]PLAYER TRANSFERS[/U][/B] “Coming Soon” [B][U]PLAYER RECRUITING[/U][/B] BE REALISTIC. Don’t waste time and money pursuing 4/5-star guys unless they have an interest of 10. WHAT PLAYERS SHOULD I PURSUE? Look for players that you have a real chance of landing. Look for 1/2-star guys with specific skills. WHO DO I HAVE A REAL SHOT OF LANDING? This is the fun part. Try to determine what might be important to a kid. You can do this to some degree by looking at his school list. Sample School List for a kid in GA: USC (blue) Miami (green) Ohio State (blue) Georgia (blue) Auburn (green) Oklahoma (green) LSU (blue) Georgia Tech (green) Analysis: Georgia Tech is not a top-tier program but is included…location must be a factor at least to some degree…chance to win must not be an important factor since Georgia Tech is a .500 team. The 7 other teams are upper tier prestige schools…Prestige must be an important factor since the recruit did not included other regional schools with a history of winning. This was a pretty simple example and there are other things to consider so feel free to ask questions or to provide examples from the game. [B][U]PLAYER TRAINING[/U][/B] “Coming Soon”

[jonesz]

Nice work! I look forward to reading the rest.

[Deltoidius]

i've never really paid attention, do the pitches really tie in to the teams they pick or is it random?

[mkpeak]

Obviously I'm not the programmer but from what I've seen yes. I have also noticed a few times where a player commits to a school not on the list. Perhaps this is a variable with the recruiting service, not sure. I know I have landed several players that had interest of 4 but my school seemed a fit and the high interest schools hadn't offered.

[Tim Plum]

this should be stickied

[Guest [Icy]]

Good job!

[Roll Tide]

Excellent job! Thanks for taking the time to write that up.

[mkpeak]

Not a problem. Saw a lot of questions being asked and thought I'd share what I've learned. [I](I play this with my 6 year old. I'm trying to teach him as much as I can before he starts pop warner next year. This may not have the graphics of Madden but it's much deeper and a better teaching tool. Not too mention I detest console games and this lets us spend time together without me going nuts playing console games.)[/I]

[Mad Cow]

dude, write a recruiting handbook. I need help!

[mkpeak]

Recruiting Tidbit Depth Chart is a major factor in recruiting and needs to be managed for long-term success. Try to keep your depth chart as balanced as possible with respect to class. This is my second season at Georgia. Here is my current depth chart at a couple of positions with analysis: [B][U]Running Back[/U][/B] (SR) Glen Calico 5-10 203 OK 38 43 (SR) Mike Scott 5-9 209 OK 52 58 SR T.J. McCareins 5-9 194 OK 75 83 (JR) Jeff Legree 5-11 190 OK 46 51 JR Aaron Doss (S) 5-11 210 OK 80 94 [COLOR=Blue](FR) Marion Sherman 5-11 192 Redshirt 58 73[/COLOR] I brought in a 5-star RB in my first recruiting class in an effort to balance the roster but he transferred after his freshman season due to a lack of playing time. [COLOR=Blue]Marion Sherman is a true freshman and is red-shirting. He was a 3-star RB.[/COLOR] I try to bring in a scholarship RB in every recruiting class. The goal is to get a big-time prospect every other year. This way I can provide the big-time prospect with playing time as a freshman behind the junior starter. The goal in between is to find a 3-star prospect with specific skills I can utililize in my offense. For example, I try to have a between the tackles power guy for short yardage situations and an outside guy with game-breaking speed for big plays. Occasionally, I can find a 4 or 5-star prospect that isn’t concerned with playing time but they are still a high transfer risk. Also, you need to be looking a year or 2 ahead at all times when recruiting. For example, I know I have 3 RB’s graduating after this season and will most likely lose JR-Aaron Doss to the NFL before his SR year. Therefore, I have allocated a substantial amount of dollars into RB recruiting. [I]Note: If you bring in a guy that says playing time is important you had better play him (special teams doesn’t make the cut as I’ve learned more than once now) or you will more often than not lose him to transfer.[/I] [B][U]Wide Receiver[/U][/B] (SR) Curtis Sharpe 6-6 173 OK 51 60 SR Andy Yovanovits 5-11 186 OK 47 54 (JR) Ted Jackson 5-9 175 OK 51 57 JR Jason Robinson 6-4 185 OK 50 57 [COLOR=Blue]SO Scott Kearse (S) 5-9 185 OK 76 89[/COLOR] [COLOR=Blue]SO Derwin Stackhouse (S) 6-1 195 OK 71 85[/COLOR] [COLOR=Blue]FR Nu Murphy 6-2 209 OK 59 72[/COLOR] When I arrived at Georgia, I inherited a team with 2 seniors, 2 juniors, and 2 sophomores. This was fine except for a couple of glaring problems at the position…No Speed & No Playmakers. The roster was filled with possession type receivers. Priority #1 was to find receivers with game-breaking speed. Priority #2 was to find receivers with the ability to pick up yards after the catch. Priority #3 was to make sure the new recruits could catch the ball. [COLOR=Blue]My first recruiting class netted Kearse (5-star) and Stackhouse(4-star). Both of these receivers have sub 4.4 speed and both started from day one. My second recruiting class netted Murphy (4-star). Murphy has 4.41 speed and tremendous ability after the catch which also makes him a good return guy.[/COLOR] Typically, I try to carry 6 or 7 receivers on my roster. The general strategy here is to bring in a big-time prospect (4 or 5 star recruit) every year while adding a role player type every other year or as needed to maintain at least 6 receivers. [I]Note: For lower prestige schools simply lower the stars. For example, if your prestige is in the mid-40’s try to bring in a 3-star receiver every year.[/I]

[johnmcc]

This is awesome!

[hitmanwa]

Great post Mkpeak, thanks so much.

[mkpeak]

"i've never really paid attention, do the pitches really tie in to the teams they pick or is it random?" [COLOR=Blue]I hope to have up some more detailed analysis on this tonight. I had some time this weekend and went throught the current recruiting season several times while trying different things and taking a lot of notes.[/COLOR] [COLOR=Red]If [B]anyone can tell me how to post a screenshot it would help greatly.[/B][/COLOR] -Kevin

[hitmanwa]

You can use photobucket to host the pic then use the [img] [/img] tags to link it.

[aguy]

[url=Image Shack]http://www.imageshack.us/[/url] use either [img] link [/img] to show the image in the thread or us url instead of img to put the hypertext link and people can look if they need to.

[Emiliano]

Great job mkpeak!

[mkpeak]

This is not fool proof but has been fairly accurate. Prior to early entry scholarships becoming available I had 17 available scholarships. I offered all 17 during the 1st week of recruiting and landed 14 of the 17. After week 3, 2 had committed elsewhere and I pulled the other offer because interest was only at 6 and I didn't feel I could afford the risk because the longer you wait to get involved with a guy...the less likely you are to get him. Cornerback - LeRoy Jones (Tried to paste image but no luck) Initial Personal Preference Analysis was Prestige was the most important factor with location also being involved. This was based on his school list. I looked at each schools prestige and found 7 of the ten schools were at 81 or better. Then came Florida at 77, Tennessee at 72, and Georgia Tech at 64. I also made note to the fact that he had higher interest in the southeastern schools. Also, the chance to win could be a factor but the school list is mostly the elite schools with the exception of Georgia Tech and possibly Tennessee. I considered the inclusion of Georgia Tech and possibly Georgia Tech be driven by location. I pitched “Prestige” in week 8 when I offered and he committed during week 13. Runningback - Marv Natkin (tried to paste image but no luck) This guy was one of the more difficult reads. To some degree I got lucky with this guy. His school list included West Virginia with a prestige of 58, Pittsburgh at 67 and Penn State at 69 and several of his schools were outside his recruiting region. I ruled out Prestige and Location as important factors and had a good feeling winning wasn't all that important because he included West Virginia which has been a .500 team over the past 4 seasons and Pittsburgh has averaged 5 losses per year over the past 4 seasons...both were high interest schools. This left me with Head Coach, Playing Time, and Style of Play. I looked at each team's roster and found either a lack of depth and/or top-tier talent, this was especially true of his high interest schools. I then looked at each school's coaching staff and found a few of the high interest schools had head coaches with less than successful records. Also, I checked each schools team info page to see their style of offense and found 2 of his high interest schools (W. Virginia and Penn State) run a balanced offense. More or less, I used process of elimination to determine the 2 main points of interest were Playing Time and Style of Play. I figured it was 50/50 at this point and went with Style of Play since I run a balanced offense which to some extent explained 2 of his high interest schools.

[Pembroke]

Thanks. Keep 'em coming. How did you get 14 of 17 to commit in the first week?? I'm playing Texas and am #1 in the nation in prestige, win a lot, and am in-state for many of these recruits. Even the ones I get (and I had 3rd-ranked recruiting class last year after #1 the year before) take several weeks. The first ones I get to commit take 2 weeks, generally. Did you just nail the recruiting pitch on all of them? Do you even bother to spend $ on scouting?

[aguy]

Id like those who take recruiting to the max to post. Mpeaks last post on figuring out the likely pitch based on their favorite teams helped a lot, but any others have their ideas?

[mkpeak]

They didn't all commit after the first week of recruiting but I did have recruiting finished up with 2 or 3 weeks remaining.

[mkpeak]

This is from my Dynasty thread We only had 19 scholarships available after 2 early departures. Odly, while having all 19 scholarships offered to recruits we received commitments from 2 other players we were recruiting while receiving commitments from 19 players that were offered scholarships. Somehow, we ended up with 21 commitments in this class when we only had 19 schollies available. Over-all, we have now have a 78 man roster (10 walk-ons) with 68 guys on scholarship.

[mkpeak]

I plan to watch this as I'm finishing up the current season to see if this carries over into the next recruiting cycle. Currently I have 14 scholarship seniors....will I have all 14 schollies available for the next recruiting cycle or will my available scholarships be reduced by 2? Basically, this should tell me if the available schollies is based on departing scholarship players or if it's based on the available 66 less departing scholarship players.

[mkpeak]

The available scholarships was reduced by 2. I can now conclude the available scholarships for each recruiting cycle is determined by taking the total available (66) less the number of returning scholarship players.