Toughest Recruiting Experience?

[cOWASs68]

I have a couple of OLD with some buddies of mine-- and decided to choose Utah State for one, Wyoming for one, and we're doing Teambuilder for the 3rd (All of our teams are based out of Alaska).

In your guys' experience-- which are the TOUGHEST schools to recruit for...because I've had a hell of a time recruiting guys for Utah State and even Wyoming-- but more Utah State than anyone else because they're so bad to begin with...and with Utah being a pipeline?? Forget about it.

Thoughts?

[GGGswim]

Oh man, you must really like a challenge with Utah State.
I'm new to the whole video gaming arena (1st XBox in August, and only game...so far...is NCAA 11) but have playing what seems non-stop as Auburn in an offline dynasty.
We're 6* now and rolling on a couple of consecutive nat'l titles and in my 2018 season Utah State somehow got on our post-Alabama schedule. Knowing nothing about them (since you can't see how a team did 'last season' when working on your schedule -- something I'd add to an NCAA '12 wishlist) I've been tracking them all season, now entering Wk 12, Bama week.
Whoa. Utah St has scored ONE touchdown all year. Their QB hasn't thrown a TD and has something like 15 INTs. They've been shut out in almost half their games.
I just started a 2nd offline last night as (NOwhere near as good as Auburn at a 2011 starting point) UCLA and, for fun, re-worked my opening opponent from a visit to Tulane, to an opener at Utah St. With a very avg team (good QB, speedy but small HB -- he took some HITS! that my Auburn guys would have bounced off of -- and only 1-2 strong DL) we took them down to the tune of 59-0, holding them to under 170 total yards on offense.
I thought I was taking on a challenge with the UCLA attempt (USC, the ORE schools, and Standord, but at least NO BAMA/FLA/LSU perennially in the top 10 and always on the schedule), but you....
Keep me posted as you build them. I'll be very interested to hear how things progress, especially with how you'll handle recruiting (only guys ranking you as 'top school'? Filling your board with 35 and spreading out calls, or listing only 10-15 and really going after only the difference-makers?)
Good luck!

[CenTechsan]

I'm in an OLD that's based on another sim-gaming website. All 12 of us began as 1* teams that are NOT located in Florida/Texas/California.

I'm Idaho, and I came in with California being a pipeline and quickly did what I had to do to gain Texas as a pipeline. Most of my players come from Washington and Texas now. Idaho surprisingly produces some decent talent (quality 3*'s) that I get to handpick now that we're in year 5 and I've wrestled control of the state from Boise.

I think the guy who has had the absolute hardest time recruiting is Eastern Michigan. Looking at his recruiting now, we're in year 5 and I don't know that he's signed a 3* yet. Most of us are to the point where we're mainly 3 and 2 * players. Although last season I did get into a bitter recruiting battle with Western Kentucky for a 1* recruit. I think between the 12 of us, we've signed a grand total of 5 4* players. Last year I got a 4* QB from California and a 4* WR from Washington. Those two have been playing pitch and catch as freshmen and have been most of my offense.

It's an entirely different world, recruiting with the lowlies, but there's something to be said for it. I'm having more fun in this dynasty than I've ever had before with Florida, Texas Tech, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Miami, etc.

Another note, we're all in the same conference as well (CUSA because we didn't think the winner of our crappy league deserves an automatic BCS bid). Our league is slowly starting to see some separation. There are two 4* prestige teams now, a couple of 3* prestige teams (Idaho is currently 3* but should move up to 4* next year), and a slew of 2* teams. Eastern Michigan is the only team that is still a 1*. I think part of the troubles there stem from the fact that Western Michigan is also in the dynasty, and WMU has had a lot of success, rendering Eastern Michigan pretty much helpless on the recruiting front. To give the guy credit, he's been in the dynasty this long and appears to be having fun with it. I don't know how many people would stay committed to a dynasty where he didn't win his first game (cpu or human) until the last week of the second season. Even in year 5, he's got single digit wins. That's a tough job to take.

[CenTechsan]

Quote: Originally Posted by GGGswim

I'll be very interested to hear how things progress, especially with how you'll handle recruiting (only guys ranking you as 'top school'? Filling your board with 35 and spreading out calls, or listing only 10-15 and really going after only the difference-makers?) Good luck!

A few of my recruiting strategies in no particular order.

1. Sign some garbage 1*s that nobody is interested in from Texas/Cali/Florida. The pipeline recruiting is crucial.

2. At the beginning of the season, use the filter to find all players with you as their #1. Take anybody worth a crap, then do the same thing with players who have you in their top 3, top 5, top 10.

3. Concentrate your efforts on 10-14 players at a time. Your pitches will all suck (except early playing time and location), and you'll be extremely lucky to get 300 points out of a 6 topic call.

4. Drop players like bad habits. You're Utah State. You are not going to win any recruiting battles against any other schools you've heard of. If they have an offer or a green bar of interest in another school, drop them and go after someone else. A few of the other teams in my dynasty had too much pride in the first recruiting season. They chased 3* and 4* players all season while I quietly amassed an army of 1* and 2* recruits. When all those 3 and 4* guys finally committed to bigger schools in the end (nobody in my league signed a 3* in year 1), the other schools in my dynasty were left scrambling for anybody, and by then were too far behind schools like San Diego State and UTEP and FAU. Several teams in my first year only signed 3 or 4 recruits total because they spent all their time chasing pipe dreams.

5. If you are a 2* program, you can get some 3* players, you just have to pay attention. If you see a player that's a 3* recruit and has "top schools" as mid-tier teams (Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia Tech, etc), don't waste your time. Those schools are going to recruit him and you're not going to get him. The early 3*s I was able to sign were all kids that were 3* talent and only seemed to be interested in Alabama, USC, Florida, UT, Ohio State, etc. Those schools aren't going to be recruiting 3* kids in the early weeks, so you can make a lot of headway in recruiting in the first few weeks. Hopefully, you can get to their #1 and sign them before the big dogs start picking through the 3*s. That's how I signed most of my 3*s.


It's a challenge, but its rewarding and I think there is a lot of strategy to doing it. You have to be careful who you recruit and you have to take everything else into account. Who else is interested in the kid? Do I have a realistic chance or am I wasting my time? 1 and 2* players are better than taking walkons. Remember that.

[cOWASs68]

Oh I definitely know the trails and tribulations (what works, what doesn't work) when it comes to recruiting with them. My average 1 hour phone call amasses a whopping 200 points (on a good week; usually more like 150-175). So you pretty much are limited to your pipeline-- and anybody who has a REMOTE interest in Utah State...and yes I give up on a TON of guys along the way because I don't stand a chance. I tend to fill up my board-- but only call 10-14 guys a week and put 1 hour into the guys I REALLY want/need. But as I phase those top 10-14 out I backfill with the guys still on my board that I still have a shot at. After that you of course reload your board but I always tend to keep it full even if I'm not calling them.

So far we're in Season 3, and we did custom conferences-- so I got put in the ACC. Last year I only had 5 or 6 recruits commit-- but because I pulled up 2 of my 4 big wins (Georgia Tech and Boise!! OH THE UPSETS!?!), I think recruits noticed. Because even though I only had 6 guys commit-- there were 5 transfers waiting to come to me, and YES they were easily the best guys on my team, and I can't wait to have them available next year. So who knows? Maybe the computer felt bad for me that Utah State is so god awful...and everything about them is just terrible- that it gifted me those 5 guys!?

It's funny that Idaho was mentioned-- I used them last year and recruiting was REALLY hard with them too-- that area of the United States...tough to get good guys with how bad the teams are?!

[Bullet Sponge]

I'm in the middle of year 3 with Utah State in the OneHumanPerConference Dynasty (#4 on the Dynasty Wire "Best Dynasties" front page... We have a few openings too) and it's no cakewalk. As stated above 150-200 points is a solid week with them.

Year 1
(D+ Overall/D+ Offense/D+ Defense), 1-star prestige
Recruited 4 3-Star players and 2 1-Star players.
Finished 4-7 (4-3) 5th in the WAC

Year 2
(D Overall/C- Offense/D Defense), 1-star prestige
Recruited 9 2-star players and 9 1-star players
Received 5 transfers, 3 from defending national champ Texas, 1 from Nebraska, 1 from San Diego State. These guys are easily in the top echelon of my team for Year 4
Finished 7-6 (5-3) 4th in the WAC. Lost Hawai'i Bowl to Marshall. Pulled off massive upset of #3 Boise State in week 13

Year 3 (Currently in week 6)
(D- Overall/D Offense/D- Defense), 2-star prestige
So far no recruits have signed, but I have 25 players who have me as #1 or #2, most being 2-stars, with a few 3-stars sprinkled in, and even 2 4-stars who I have almost no chance of getting
So far 1-2 (0-1) coming off a humiliating 74-3 loss to Boise State

So yep. Difficult but by far the most fun I've had in a dynasty!