Let's Talk Recruiting (CFB 25)

[georgiafan]

Yea I'm fascinated to see how the portal turns out as I've prob said a few times. They need to add sliders/options on however it done. Even though I'm wanting to use it, It's not going to be fun if 15 guys from my 2nd/3rd string enter the portal after the season ends.

Having a start from the offseason would be great and seems pretty standard nowadays. Another option that Madden does good now is the play the moments option. That will allow you to have some control of the games if you want to breeze past those first few years.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by georgiafan

Yea I'm fascinated to see how the portal turns out as I've prob said a few times. They need to add sliders/options on however it done. Even though I'm wanting to use it, It's not going to be fun if 15 guys from my 2nd/3rd string enter the portal after the season ends. Having a start from the offseason would be great and seems pretty standard nowadays. Another option that Madden does good now is the play the moments option. That will allow you to have some control of the games if you want to breeze past those first few years.

Having 85 man rosters will help, but it will suck having your heir apparents transfer out. It's real life, but this is a video game. There definitely needs to be sliders/options and a morale system and clear parameters on why a specific recruit would want to transfer. Whether that's being promised a starting spot, bringing in a player has higher overall, number of snaps/stats, quality of team, scheme, etc. There needs to be a coach skill that we can earn to increase the chance of guys to stay.

I was thinking about something like Madden Moments. I think NBA 2k has something similar as well. The only hangup about that is that it's hard to truly start in the offseason without completely changing the landscape of the mode. You can't really start before the winter portal or February recruiting window without all the other rosters being affected. If I start as a HC, i would expect to see a wave of guys transfer out. Then would need a pool of players to choose from. A lot of gray area that needs to be considered.

I'm not sure how to handle that properly. How can you start in offseason with the portal and signing day. Without it changing the opening day roster. Only thing I can think of is there being a small pool of fictional players for you to choose from in the Portal and your players end up on random rosters. If I'm doing a 1 star school dynasty, it would be cool to utilize the Transfer Portal to get Plug and Play starters so that you can start off and be competitive. But, I don't see how we can start off at without the landscape flipping before the first season even starts

[canes21]

Put me in the club of wanting sliders/settings to modify how the portal operates. I personally want it as authentic as possible be it tuned that way by default or I have a way to change the settings to get it there. With how divisive the portal is in real life, and now much it impacts the game today, it definitely needs to be something that the users can adjust to their liking.

[zbundy3]

I'm really hopeing that CFB25 can barrow a page out MLB the show scouting in franchise mode, where each recruit attributes are not revealed but maybe given a letter grade and each coach (HC, OC, DC) have a scouting attribute once scouted then unlock the number of the actual attributes but given a range (ex. speed unscouted is a B+ and once scouted then given a range of 85-95, and how accurate and how small the range is determined by whichever coach's scouting attribute).

Also the coaches training attribute could be level of how much a recruit gains in atributes not connected to the physical aspects like IQ, hands, blocking, tackling, coverage, play recognition. And the physical attribute gains are determined by your programs Training facilities.

I doubt this would all be in the game, but idealy this is where i would like to see this headed. Maybe it would be too much for beginners into the series, idk.

[illwill10]

Being an Eagles fan and them drafting Cooper DeJean, that's the type of recruit I'm looking forward to recruit and get attached to. He was a 3 star QB in a small town who only had 3 scholarship offers. Other than Iowa, the other two offers were FCS schools in the Dakotas. He wanted to be a QB and the FCS were willing to allow that, but he wanted to play at Iowa, and they wanted to make him a safety.

That's the type of recruits I want to see. I would like them to try and incorporate big and small town athletes. It would be nice to see more boom or Bust players from small town athletes.


It would be nice to see Athletes have preferred positions and you have to tell them what position you want them to specialize in. So if there is a QB/DB and he wants to play QB, if you want him to play as a DB, it should lessen the chances of him being interested. Or if a recruit wants to play Two-Way, then if you want to get them you have to promise to give them snaps on both sides. Athletes also could not have a preference.

Would be nice if recruits have preferred schools. Like DeJean, if you're a preferred school, it'll increases the chances of getting them, even if you don't hit on their recruiting pitches. A preferred school school have an advantage even if they don't promise early playing time or preferred position.

I would like see how recruits are ranked IRL in the game. So if you have a recruit who has the prototype size for position, it should increase their ranking. Likewise if they are undersized, it should drop their rankings. The same goes for athletic traits. As I was mentioning big and small towns, I would like to see football division level play a factor. So if there is an Athletic Prototypical sized recruit that plays in a high level HS division, they should be at minimum a high 4 star recruit. Those recruits should be harder to get interest from with lower level schools. It would be awesome to find a 2 or 3 star undersized recruit who turns into a gem

[georgiafan]

Travis Hunter being such a major name in college football and one of the favorites to be on the cover. I do think that helps the chances of the two-way players in recruiting and the athlete types. At the very least we should be able to add your backup QB into the depth chart at other positions.

I'm not expecting the kind of recruiting promises like you mentioned, but that would obviously be cool. One of the annoying that in 14 was so many of the athletes was WR's and you didn't really know it until things were over.

Quote: Originally Posted by illwill10

It would be nice to see Athletes have preferred positions and you have to tell them what position you want them to specialize in. So if there is a QB/DB and he wants to play QB, if you want him to play as a DB, it should lessen the chances of him being interested. Or if a recruit wants to play Two-Way, then if you want to get them you have to promise to give them snaps on both sides. Athletes also could not have a preference.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by georgiafan

Travis Hunter being such a major name in college football and one of the favorites to be on the cover. I do think that helps the chances of the two-way players in recruiting and the athlete types. At the very least we should be able to add your backup QB into the depth chart at other positions. I'm not expecting the kind of recruiting promises like you mentioned, but that would obviously be cool. One of the annoying that in 14 was so many of the athletes was WR's and you didn't really know it until things were over.

I agree that Hunter is a good choice. I think he's the better choice for the cover over Shedeur. With Hunter being in the game, I definitely want to see more legit two way athletes in the game.

A good way to make athletes easier to distinguish is to display the positions the guys can play through scouting. I think they could see that being one of the first things unlocked. Before you get grades, first thing revealed is the positions that they play. But, I do agree that most of the athletes were WRs or the same archetype of players. I can remember the 5'11-6'1 88 speed, 85 THP/THA, solid Route Runner ATH. I think at the time, it was harder to differentiate athletes. That was before Madden expanded the Positional ratings. That is something that they will be need to do, which is differentiate the athletes.

Speaking on Madden, I don't want to see Superstar X-Factor and Abilities. I just don't see that system being a fit in the College Football landscape. Plus I think there's too many players to go through the route. It's a big difference between 1696 players on an active NFL roster and over 11,000 players. I rather them go back to the Impact Player format. Even with abilities, I just think there's too many peoples to have to give abilities too out to.

[canes21]

It'd be neat to see the position(s) they play for their HS team(with stats if we're truly lucky) and also see a projection of the position(s) they'd play in college. And, those projections could vary coach/staff to coach/staff and have an influence on what teams pursue what players and where they put them.

Would be even better and deeper if those positions were saved and the CPU would actually be smart enough to move guys around later in their career if it would be more beneficial for them and the team. A common example is the HS player that plays both WR and CB like Hunter, but comes the college as a WR. Never gets significant snaps their first 2 years and makes the transfer to CB their Jr year and starts to see the field more often. It's something that is seen around the country regularly and would be great to see in the game.

Obviously some decent logic would need to be put into place for this to work well enough, but it is 2024, the processing power is more than there, it would just be up to how in depth EA wanted to take it. I'd be fine if it were something as simple as a point in the offseason like in the old NCAA games or Madden now where you are prompted to make position changes if wanted and in that stage the CPU teams run mock simulations that take the players that are capable of playing multiple positions and it gets an idea of how often they'd play meaningful snaps at each spot. It could be as simple as creating a depth chart with them as a WR, CB, and RB and seeing where they place in each of those, then having a roll chance to see if they swap their position.

The example would be an 78 overall WR that would be an 83 overall CB if position swapped. The computer runs two separate depth charts and sees at WR they'd be the 5th WR but at CB they'd be the nickel or maybe the 4th corner. Then, there would be a roll that would be based off a formula dictated by the depth chart positioning of each position. Since this one is 5th WR vs 4th CB, the roll chance is low, but if it hits, the player is swapped, if not, they stay a WR.

In a more extreme example, say you have a 75 overall CB that would be an 84 overall safety. In this example, the roll chance for swapping to safety may be as high as 90%. The roll is more likely to hit at that percentage, so more often than not the CPU will make what looks like the right move on paper, but it isn't a guarantee and can lead to some questionable misused players just like in real life.