NCAA ALL THINGS RECRUITING THREAD!!

[Potvin63]

I am new to this thread, new to PS3 (bought it last week) and got NCAA Football 09 at half price, 29.99, brand new and have always enjoyed the dynasty and recruiting aspects of this game for years though I skipped 2008 as I was without a system at that time. In a funny coincidence I am a writer for Rivals.com (the Cincinnati Bearcats team site) though I handle basketball recruiting.

My question concerns a players star rating vs. his actual grades in the various categories. I am in week 9 and have a commit from a top 10 rated at his position, 4 star OLB who is only a C- overall but has A+ awareness and solid B's in categories like speed, tackling, etc. Does it matter if a guy is rated that low overall but his other numbers are good? I am also after a huge 3 star QB (6-6, 243lbs.) who fits Cincinnati's spread offensive system well. I am also chasing a handful of other 3 star kids and some 2 star kids I plan on redshirting and developing because no other skill position (QB, HB, WR) were all that interested in me but I've been recruiting diligently and am 1st for 3 star kids at DT, DE, S, CB and G.

For those who have gone through several recruiting cycles and years have you had success with kids rated at C- overall when they come in? For those who don't know, Cincy's defense is very good but 10 of the 11 starters on the team are seniors and I will likely have some of these recruits start or play a good deal as backups next year and want to know if I am better off hoping I do well this season and can land higher rated players next season... Thanks for any help.

[jdrhammer]

I have a question concerning recruiting in OD's. I replaced someone mid-season. Does this take the offers away from the players the current user has offered or do the offers remain the same?

The guy I added shows all the players that I know were offered and had visited listed with no check in the circle signifying he hasn't been offered nor does it show a visit date when he has previously visited. I don't know if he went in and removed these players or not but it's showing no offers and we're talking about cream of the crop type of players, not scrubs. I actually think it would be cool if it took the schollies away when you change coaches but I don't know if that's what happened.

[TrevJo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Potvin63

My question concerns a players star rating vs. his actual grades in the various categories. I am in week 9 and have a commit from a top 10 rated at his position, 4 star OLB who is only a C- overall but has A+ awareness and solid B's in categories like speed, tackling, etc. Does it matter if a guy is rated that low overall but his other numbers are good? I am also after a huge 3 star QB (6-6, 243lbs.) who fits Cincinnati's spread offensive system well. I am also chasing a handful of other 3 star kids and some 2 star kids I plan on redshirting and developing because no other skill position (QB, HB, WR) were all that interested in me but I've been recruiting diligently and am 1st for 3 star kids at DT, DE, S, CB and G. For those who have gone through several recruiting cycles and years have you had success with kids rated at C- overall when they come in? For those who don't know, Cincy's defense is very good but 10 of the 11 starters on the team are seniors and I will likely have some of these recruits start or play a good deal as backups next year and want to know if I am better off hoping I do well this season and can land higher rated players next season... Thanks for any help.

Stars are tied to the overall rating. Basically the overall rating gives you the same info as stars but is more specific. If he's C- overall, then what that means is he's going to start out rated somewhere between 65 and 72 overall as a freshman. The scale for overall rating is slightly higher than the scale for rating attributes.
Awareness is also graded differently than other attributes. A+ in awareness is going to mean a max awareness of about 70 for the player. Whereas for other attributes, an A+ would translate to betweeen 95 and 99 as a freshman. Good awareness is nice to have in a LB, unless you like to control the LB in which case maybe you don't care about having high awareness and would be better off with a C- overall LB with low awareness (and higher other attributes).
B is decent for speed and tackling, it will translate to roughly 81-84 speed and tackling for the player as a freshman. (Check out my post on page 48 for more info about what the grades translate to.) If that sounds like a player that fits your system, go for it! I'm guessing if he's C- overall and has B speed, B tackling, A+ awareness, he probably is a little lower on things like agility, acceleration, and maybe coverage or pursuit/block shedding.

[Potvin63]

Quote: Originally Posted by TrevJo

Stars are tied to the overall rating. Basically the overall rating gives you the same info as stars but is more specific. If he's C- overall, then what that means is he's going to start out rated somewhere between 65 and 72 overall as a freshman. The scale for overall rating is slightly higher than the scale for rating attributes. Awareness is also graded differently than other attributes. A+ in awareness is going to mean a max awareness of about 70 for the player. Whereas for other attributes, an A+ would translate to betweeen 95 and 99 as a freshman. Good awareness is nice to have in a LB, unless you like to control the LB in which case maybe you don't care about having high awareness and would be better off with a C- overall LB with low awareness (and higher other attributes). B is decent for speed and tackling, it will translate to roughly 81-84 speed and tackling for the player as a freshman. (Check out my post on page 48 for more info about what the grades translate to.) If that sounds like a player that fits your system, go for it! I'm guessing if he's C- overall and has B speed, B tackling, A+ awareness, he probably is a little lower on things like agility, acceleration, and maybe coverage or pursuit/block shedding.

Ok I appreciate the insight and the info on page 48 of this thread has been valuable. It is info I couldn't know because I haven't gotten through season 1 yet to see how the ratings shake out for my recruits. I am somewhat fortunate that at least on offense the talent is spread out fairly evenly between the classes with 2 QB's I am redshirting this year along with a RB. Probably better off not taking too many guys who won't cut it in a year or two if I can maintain the success and get to a BCS bowl game and win, which will really boost my school star rating and the level of interest from higher ranked recruits.

I am enjoying the game playing with someone's slider settings that allows the CPU to run the ball effectively and really cut down on all the INT's on both sides. I actually didn't throw an INT my first three games but have thrown 4 in my last 2 and all were legit interceptions. One thing I have noticed is that it is difficult to loft a ball just right even when your WR has a few steps on the DB in single coverage. That DB ends up swatting it down more often than not even though I tried to lob it in a bit to go over the top.

Again thanks for the help and I'll be sure to let you know what my C- OLB ends up being rated as a freshman.

[splff3000]

Quote: Originally Posted by Potvin63

Ok I appreciate the insight and the info on page 48 of this thread has been valuable. It is info I couldn't know because I haven't gotten through season 1 yet to see how the ratings shake out for my recruits. I am somewhat fortunate that at least on offense the talent is spread out fairly evenly between the classes with 2 QB's I am redshirting this year along with a RB. Probably better off not taking too many guys who won't cut it in a year or two if I can maintain the success and get to a BCS bowl game and win, which will really boost my school star rating and the level of interest from higher ranked recruits. I am enjoying the game playing with someone's slider settings that allows the CPU to run the ball effectively and really cut down on all the INT's on both sides. I actually didn't throw an INT my first three games but have thrown 4 in my last 2 and all were legit interceptions. One thing I have noticed is that it is difficult to loft a ball just right even when your WR has a few steps on the DB in single coverage. That DB ends up swatting it down more often than not even though I tried to lob it in a bit to go over the top. Again thanks for the help and I'll be sure to let you know what my C- OLB ends up being rated as a freshman.

One other thing to remember is that there are sometimes sleepers in the recruiting class. I have had plenty of ovr C- guys come out at 75 or higher. If the grades for the positions don't make sense for the overall then he might be a sleeper/bust type recruit. I remember specifically one time I got a 3* G with a C- ovr, but all his blocking, acc, agi, and awr, ratings were b- or above. He DID have D spd, but everything else was a B- or above. He turned out ot be a 79 ovr G starting his freshman year. I went back and looked and his grade was a B- overall now. The same thing has happened in reverse too. I've had a 5* DE come out as a 72 ovr. If the ovr grade doesn't make sense based on the grades of the attributes then, it'll probably be adjusted once he joins the team. Like in the case above, If everything is a B- or above except one category, then you know he shouldn't be rated a C- ovr. If you look for this kinda stuff, you can find some real gems and you can avoid some potential duds

[splff3000]

Quote: Originally Posted by jdrhammer

I have a question concerning recruiting in OD's. I replaced someone mid-season. Does this take the offers away from the players the current user has offered or do the offers remain the same? The guy I added shows all the players that I know were offered and had visited listed with no check in the circle signifying he hasn't been offered nor does it show a visit date when he has previously visited. I don't know if he went in and removed these players or not but it's showing no offers and we're talking about cream of the crop type of players, not scrubs. I actually think it would be cool if it took the schollies away when you change coaches but I don't know if that's what happened.

This does NOT take away the offers. The CPU will take control of the recruiting immediately after the user is deleted. Now, if the CPU is not offering schollies then that's a whole different issue. The CPU has done some weird things in regards to recruiting so this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

So technically the CPU CAN take away the scholarship, but most of the time they just leave it as it is. They may just change the week of the visit or whatever.

[Hellisan]

Quote: Originally Posted by splff3000

One other thing to remember is that there are sometimes sleepers in the recruiting class. I have had plenty of ovr C- guys come out at 75 or higher. If the grades for the positions don't make sense for the overall then he might be a sleeper/bust type recruit. I remember specifically one time I got a 3* G with a C- ovr, but all his blocking, acc, agi, and awr, ratings were b- or above. He DID have D spd, but everything else was a B- or above. He turned out ot be a 79 ovr G starting his freshman year. I went back and looked and his grade was a B- overall now. The same thing has happened in reverse too. I've had a 5* DE come out as a 72 ovr. If the ovr grade doesn't make sense based on the grades of the attributes then, it'll probably be adjusted once he joins the team. Like in the case above, If everything is a B- or above except one category, then you know he shouldn't be rated a C- ovr. If you look for this kinda stuff, you can find some real gems and you can avoid some potential duds

This is an awesome post. That is all.

Actually, so I'm not totally spamming, there are some random things I've been picking up on lately that might be of interest/help to somebody.

The first thing is, if you want to have fun recruiting (the ability to scout/choose from a multitude of players) I really do suggest taking a big school. Maybe one that has been on the decline, but still, a big school.

The reason for this is that the smaller schools never really get to the level of the big schools in terms of the number of recruits that are interested in playing for them.

Example: A friend of mine and I started a dynasty where we were both in the Mountain West. He as Wyoming, and I as Colorado State. We quickly built those schools up to be very good. He eventually got tired of having a team dressed in piss and s*** colored uniforms, and I eventually accepted an offer to the Big 12, so he took over at Colorado. By the time he did that, I had won two national championships, had a 95 OVR team, 6-stars, the works. Colorado, meanwhile, was like a 3 or 4-star team at that point.

Every single year, when I go to the initial recruiting screen during the preseason, I look at the number of players that have CSU in their top 10 vs. the number of players that have Colorado in their top 10. He has exactly 200 more players interested every single time. Last season it was 55 players with interest in CSU (albeit some of the best players in the nation) and 255 players with interest in Colorado, which included massive amounts of almost all types of players. This year it was 62 and 262.

I was able to improve it slightly by changing my offensive system to "spread" and changing some of my coach strategy sliders to be more moderate (I had 100% substitutions, etc...) Taking the dynasty offline, I was able to get about 110 players interested in CSU, but it's still vastly inferior to the interest a big-name school can garner.

Basically, this must be the game's way of keeping the low teams low, is that even if they have 6-stars, elite pitches, and national championships, they still don't have as many players looking their way as the traditional power teams do.

I have this problem with Purdue, too (have made them a 6-star school after being easily the worst and least prestigious team in my league to start out with) and we typically have anywhere from 90 to 115 players that list Purdue in their Top 10.

[reyes the roof]

I'm new on the forum, so I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I was coach of Tennessee for 5 years, I had the program prestige up to 6 stars and my coach prestige up to 6 stars and my integrity was full. All of my school's pitches were excellent or elite except for academic prestige, which was good. Then after my 5th season I decided to quit and take a job at TCU and build them up. They had a 2 star program and since I quit my last job I went down to 5 stars as a coach. Anyway, I began recruiting at TCU and did a manual call and noticed all of TCU's pitches were rated exactly the same as when I was at Tennessee, all elite and excellent except for academic prestige which was good. However, when I go to the main recruiting menu and got to the MY School section where it shows you what your pitches are rated, it showed them as good, ,fair, sub par and poor. So my question is, what are my pitch ratings, are they as shown when I do a manual call when they are mostly elite and excellent, or are they as shown in the MY School section where they are listed as Good, Fair, etc?