Recruiting Strategy Guide

[JimOttoFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jets486

This guide is great, and has been a huge help for me, but what about players that have soft committed to you? I have a large lead on my opponents for a bunch of players and about of them are soft committed to me. Should I be pumping a ton of time into them to maintain that lead and hope for a hard commit or should I just carefully monitor my lead by doing a few topics each week?

Last year, if you put two hours into a soft commit, you would get him every time.

To answer you, I've only played 1.5 seasons so far, but whenever I get a soft commit I just keep pumping 60 minutes. Why back off when you are so close to landing him?

[Jets486]

Quote: Originally Posted by JimOttoFan

Last year, if you put two hours into a soft commit, you would get him every time. To answer you, I've only played 1.5 seasons so far, but whenever I get a soft commit I just keep pumping 60 minutes. Why back off when you are so close to landing him?

Fair enough, and thanks for the answer, I just don't want to waste time (literally) on him if I am pretty sure to get him. Obviously I check my distance every time and when necessary, I push hard, but on the typical week when I'm way in the lead, I usually will just spend 10-20 minutes and hope he commits then or in between weeks.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jets486

Fair enough, and thanks for the answer, I just don't want to waste time (literally) on him if I am pretty sure to get him. Obviously I check my distance every time and when necessary, I push hard, but on the typical week when I'm way in the lead, I usually will just spend 10-20 minutes and hope he commits then or in between weeks.

For me its always about the point differential on soft commits. If its the one point lead then obviously I still go all out with 60 minutes.

If its in the 200-300 range then I put 50 minutes into it. 30 minutes for 500-900, and 10 minutes for 900+. I've never lost any soft commit that I had a lead of more then one point on.

[JimOttoFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jets486

Fair enough, and thanks for the answer, I just don't want to waste time (literally) on him if I am pretty sure to get him. Obviously I check my distance every time and when necessary, I push hard, but on the typical week when I'm way in the lead, I usually will just spend 10-20 minutes and hope he commits then or in between weeks.

You have not lost any recruits this way, right? You are conserving time, which you can put into other recruits. You are playing the game well; better than me. For me I'm just too darn impatient. I got frustrated enough in the first season to stop recruiting totally and just play the games. The CPU did a lousy job of recruiting for me, but I could not have done any better.

[JimOttoFan]

For recruiting the positive differences I found between the first and second seasons so far are two:
1.) I picked a lot of recruits that already had me #1
2.) Since I had a winning season in 2010, and increased from a 2* to a 3* prestige school I actually had a 4* recruit list me at #1 on his list.

So basically I am using my son-in-law's method from 2004. He only recruited green players (players already interested in his school). What fun is that? You cannot sway recruits?

How do coaches build programs in real life? They coach. And they recruit.
Look at a successful coach like Brian Kelly. He has turned programs around.
He taught his players, won games, and recruited.

So this video game allows us to manage a game. It does not allow us to train players, like the 2009 version. And it has simulated the recruiting process. If, in the pool of recruits, they can have some that will recognize when a coach is making a positive difference, beyond the low coach prestige a beginning coach gets...

Oh well. I guess I have to beat up the CPU for four or five seasons until I can recruit with the big dogs.

[kcarr]

Quote: Originally Posted by boilerfan1509

Yeah, anymore and you are spreading your time too thin. If you only have 12 free spots on your roster it doesnt make much sense to recruit 20 guys and then have to cut 8 of them. Meaning wasted time. This process is working for me right now. I am Purdue, i have 2 commits already. I have 10 more that I am either 1 or 2 on their list, another that i am 3rd. And then 2 reaches.....that i am hoping for luck. All are 3* or 4* as Purdue (a 3* team). If i loose any of these or fall too far behind, then i cut them loose and go after another (starting from scratch searching). Because if you keep 5 guys that you put no time to, they may (highly likely) loose interest in you, and there could be someone else that hasn't gotten the love that they want from the big boys and has higher interest in you. So i wait and if i loose a few i start my search all over again. Additionally, I will be able to use the offseason get more recruits as-well.

I am going to disagree slightly here. While going after too many recruits too early will spread yourself way too thin I feel that once you have 6 guys signed if you only go after 9 more then you are basically wasting an hour per week.

Even if the recruit is a longshot to make the team you might as well sign him and give him that longshot. If the player can come in and improve your team in any way then you might as well sign him. This is especially true with lower rated teams where it is pretty easy to find a player who will atleast be the best player on your team at his position at atleast one usefull skill or someone who can add valuable depth to your team.

Also, you can even sign more than 25 recruits although anything beyond the 25 will be usually very low rated. The thing about it is if the players are on your board when you sign your 25th player it seems to drop all their interest so they have to be players you can add after that and still sign. That said, if you sign any player, no matter how low their chance of making your team, there is still a slight chance they could improve your team so if you have the minutes use them

[JimOttoFan]

[quote=georgiafan;2041382914]

Quote: Originally Posted by goalieump413

So I entered my online pass code and that went through fine... ...it appears that the recruiting report only shows the amount of time I have called the prospects, not the amount the CPU teams have. Am I missing something? Mine is an offline dynasty... You can change it to CPU teams by hitting like L2 are something like that on PS3

Pull n Pray answered to use the left trigger to change teams.

And I have done that. I checked in on how the CPU recruited for USC, UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma. It put about 15 on the board and gave 50 minutes or more to 10 or 11 recruits, no minutes for the rest.

[kcarr]

Quote: Originally Posted by Scrapps

To any of the recruiting gurus out there. At what point do you cut your loses and stop recruiting a player? How many points do you have to be behind the #1 school before you throw in the towel and invest your time elsewhere?

I don't really have a set number of points. There are a lot of variables to consider after all. The point where I give up on a guy is after I have had my visit and offered my promises I am willing to offer and a scholarship if I am still a ways behind, like 400 or 500 points usually, and am not gaining on a week to week basis. Any of those things, visit, scholarship, or promises can push you ahead so make sure you have used those but other than that the only thing that can give you a big jump are 2x weeks and with a weak school all you will gain is probably 200-300 points extra. If you are a stronger school you can gain 400-500 or so extra so you can hold on a little longer