Recruiting Strategy Guide

[boilerfan1509]

I found this to more define how to allocate your scholarships and how much time to spend. I just wasnt always aware of when to offer and stuff. But this has been working pretty good for me so far to stick with these guidelines.

What do you think?

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You can have 35 players on your recruiting board and offer 25 scholarships. But you do not want to do that. So how many players should you have on your board? The same number that you want to offer. If you lose a few recruits and want to offer more, you want to re-look at ALL available recruits. That recruit from week 1 that had you at 6 interest may not be interested anymore, or there maybe another recruit that has really jumped in interest (and you didn’t even do anything!). So I advise to only have the number of “OFFERS” on your recruiting board. If that drops, re-evaluate to add back to the “OFFERS” Number.
Number of “OFFERS” should be your number of available scholarships the next season + 3. The available scholarships is{ Current Unused scholarships+ (number of graduating seniors [don’t count redshirting seniors] + number of likely leaving underclassmen}. Ok so you have your available scholarships, now add 3. Because you wont get everyone that you want.
There are 4 Types of Recruits you should go after (Passing certain Recruit Qualifiers):
· NEED
· REACH
· WANT
· REPLACEMENT
Recruit Qualifiers – are ideal criteria for a recruit to pass to know the probability to get the recruit. The following are the 4 recruit qualifiers (In Order of priority):
· Level of Interest a Recruit has in your School
· Is the Recruit located in a pipeline state (in your state is best)
· Recruit stars equal to your prestige stars
· Top 5 Teams for recruit (4 teams if you in top 5) prestige equal or worse than your prestige
NEED Recruits – These recruits are very high probable to commit to you and are in positions of need for you. I recommend recruiting at least 2 at every need position (hopefully you get at least one of those). Obviously, there are some that you wont (FB, P, K, etc.) Use your best judgement, but DON’T include REACH, or WANT in this count. This is NEED only.
Criteria for NEED Recruits: Match at least 3 Recruit Qualifiers
REACH Recruits – These are those dream program playmaker legends. These recruits are the 4 & 5-star studs that likely will go to Ohio State, Florida, or Texas. But we can dream right. Hence the REACH label. You want to go after ABSOLUTELY no more than 3 of these types of recruits.
Criteria for REACH Recruits: Match at least 1 Recruit Qualifier
WANT Recruits – These recruits are realistically obtainable recruits that will help your team in one of the following ways: To provide physical depth (if you have only 5 WR and one goes down…..you need a body in there that is at least decent at WR), planning for the future (you want to redshirt this recruit before the junior starter in front of him graduates), or to boost skill (you are weak at MLB and this kid could be a starter as a True Frosh).
Criteria for WANT Recruits: Match at least 2 Recruit Qualifiers
REPLACEMENT Recruit – This is if you pass fill all the above recruits and have a few commitments and have left over time. Then do as you wish. These recruits are over your available scholarship numbers so they will have to replace players already on your team. So go after some higher ranked guys. To solidly build your team (go after more NEED recruits), or even go after a few more REACH if you want. You have your scholarships solidified, so now just get guys that are better than the ones you have.
Criteria for REPLACEMENT Recruits: Its up to you
It is important to always keep the number of recruits that you are chasing (include commits to this count) at your OFFERS number. If you start drifting more, then you are spreading to thin.
How To Recruit
These are general rules, and I haven’t tested them much so they may change. Keep in mind the idea is building your team, not instantly having All-Americans. Once you start building your team, (thus decreasing your actual needs), you will obviously increase your WANT and should be getting better as a team, thus raising your prestige, thus raising the qualifying criteria resulting in better recruits, hence dynasty. But you have to build a good foundation first. Follow these guidelines to how to Recruit.
· 50 MIN for each NEED
· 40 MIN for each WANT
· Remaining divided over REACH recruits
· When you get a commitment, that time goes into original pot. DO NOT ADD ANOTHER RECRUIT. Focus on the ones you have in your OFFER list.
· EXAMPLE: Say you have 15 OFFERS (most you should go after): 6 NEED (3 actual needs), 6 WANT, 3 REACH
o 6 (NEED) * 50 MIN = 5 HOURS; 6 (WANT) *40 MIN = 4 HOURS. This leaves you 60 MIN to split on your REACH (1 for 60 MIN, 2 for 30 MIN, or 3 for 20 MIN). REMEMBER: REACH Recruits are hard to get, so spreading them thin (example: 20 MIN each) probably won’t get you many.
· If you have more than 7 actual needs (14 NEED OFFERS), then focus on getting those, while instead of WANT or REACH keep going after NEED. If you have that many actual needs, you need help, not reaches.
Questions I do not know the answers to (I know the basic concepts to most of these, but haven’t had a chance to really test them out:
· When do you offer scholarships? - Do you see how far you get with pitches and if you start falling, then offer? Do you offer immediately? Do you wait until they visit?
· When do you offer promises? – See above
· Do you pitch immediately or see what their interest in category is first?
· When do you pitch vs. Compare to other school?

[bewoulf]

Nice Work.

[scadh]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deegeezy

Very well put together piece. I loved it. I know it is a long shot, but I just want to clarify that it is not impossible to get a player whose star rating exceeds your school if you're not in their initial top 10. I am about to grab a 3-star WR with a 1-star school who had no interest in me after the first 2 or 3 weeks of recruiting. Going into my 5th game, I am now #1 on his list despite me being Tulane, his other schools looking like last year's BCS standings, and "Championship Contender" being high on his priority list.

Cool, it's good to know that in rare circumstances anything can happen -- just like in the real world. In this particular case, I'd say that you're probably moving up because that 3* recruit is getting zero attention from the "last year's BCS" schools. A 3* WR can WANT to play at Alabama all he wishes, but if Alabama never calls...

If it's still early in the season, the big schools just may not be onto him yet as they try for better players. As they back off the 4* and 5* recruits for whatever reason, they come calling for your guy. If it does, I hope you have a big lead! Go into Recruiting Reports to check which schools are spending time on him.

I have never played with a 1* school so I can't say for certain, but I would guess that such a scenario would become increasingly unlikly the higher quality the player is. So for instance, I could see a 3* player signing with a 1* team simply because none of the big boys want him. However, it's difficult to imagine that a 5* player would drop two levels down to sign with a 3* team. There's just too many schools after them.

[Deegeezy]

Quote: Originally Posted by scadh

Cool, it's good to know that in rare circumstances anything can happen -- just like in the real world. In this particular case, I'd say that you're probably moving up because that 3* recruit is getting zero attention from the "last year's BCS" schools. A 3* WR can WANT to play at Alabama all he wishes, but if Alabama never calls... If it's still early in the season, the big schools just may not be onto him yet as they try for better players. As they back off the 4* and 5* recruits for whatever reason, they come calling for your guy. If it does, I hope you have a big lead! Go into Recruiting Reports to check which schools are spending time on him. I have never played with a 1* school so I can't say for certain, but I would guess that such a scenario would become increasingly unlikly the higher quality the player is. So for instance, I could see a 3* player signing with a 1* team simply because none of the big boys want him. However, it's difficult to imagine that a 5* player would drop two levels down to sign with a 3* team. There's just too many schools after them.

I decided against buying the recruiting reports premium content. I think it is a bit unrealistic to know exactly what the competition is doing.

[superjew887]

Can we get a sticky for this? It's really good stuff.

[buckeye02]

My strategy so far has been to pitch the different categories to find out what the prospect likes and dislikes. When i pitch the categories i will type them onto a notepad for future reference. Example: If i pitch Championship Contender and the value is an 88.....i know that the recruit thinks of it as a High, Very High, or Most. So ill make a note of it, and when the next week comes and the same pitch comes up i will go ahead and unlock the pitch. This saves a lot of points, because you get more points just for pitching and not unlocking just yet. This also works for low value points. If Academics come up and you pitch it to the prospect, turns out its only a 30. Then you know its going to be a low result. So you wont want to unlock that pitch.Ive also found that it isnt good to fill your board with prospects whom you dont plan on talking too every week. Mainly because the 2X multiplier could go to one of these recruits and you will miss it all together.

[hrd12]

How do you guys handle a highly rated recruit that comes in with a low overall score? For example, if a 4 star recruit comes in with a 61 overall, do you cut him or keep him? I know there is a hidden potential factor in there, so I'm hesitant to cut him.

Also, does it count against you if you cut a player you made a promise to?

[callmetaternuts]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deegeezy

I decided against buying the recruiting reports premium content. I think it is a bit unrealistic to know exactly what the competition is doing.

So the recruiting reports he mentioned in the first post is add on content?