Do CPU schools underavalue athletes?

[Dianwei32]

I was going through my Dynasty and lost a 4* recruit to LSU and was looking for a guy to replace him with. I was looking at all recruits with me in their top 5 who haven't been recruited very heavily and came across a 5* Athlete with good ratings for a WR (B/B+ Speed, Agility, Accel, Catching, Route Running, Release), but no one was recruiting him. After 5 weeks he was still in the Top 10 category and had no offers/visits.

I went back and was looking at the other athletes I was recruiting (1 5* and 3 4*), and none of them were being recruited by more than 2 other schools, and only one of them (the 5*) had recieved a scholarship offer from another school. Has anyone else noticed that CPU schools don't seem to go after Athlete recruits as much as other recruits? I'll get to at least get a head start if not be the only school to recruit this 5* ATH/WR while the powerhouse schools all fight for 2 or 3 5* WRs.

[Strategy101]

A little bit yes.

I think the recruiting is generally VERY random. Typically in my dynasties I noticed eventually there tend to be too many WR's and HB's and those positions generally become very lowly recruited.

ATH's seem to be very random though. Right now in my 3rd year dynasty Texas has 6 ATH's on their recruiting chart that they're spending time on. I havent seen another school recruit THAT heavily in the ATH section yet.

I will say this much though, the "superstar ATH's" seem the less heavily recruited than the actual positional players. A 5* WR with nearly identical attributes as a 5* ATH/WR will almost always get 2-4x as many scholarship offers, despite the attributes being nearly identical.

So lesson to be learned is, if you want talented players with less recruiting effort, ALWAYS heavily scout the ATH section for "your guys" because there is almost always a few talented guys that arent being as heavily recruited as they should be.

[l3ulvl]

I like trying to find scrambling QBs among the athletes. The only hint you have that he may be a QB is throwing power, if I can find a guy with good speed/running attributes and something for throwing power I have a decent shot at them because of what you guys said, the CPU tends to under-recruit athletes.

[boxvic]

It seems to me that ATHs are recruited pretty randomly within each class. Some of them tend to draw a ton of recruiting effort while the one slightly below them in the overall ranking draws hardly any.

From my own experience it feels like lower and mid-level CPU teams recruit most ATHs harder than top level teams do- but those lower level teams seem to have an advantage over your team if you aren't a powerhouse. In my current UK dynasty I have went for several 4* ATH, I didn't really care what position they would grade out for since they would be an upgrade at almost all positions; in the end I have lost several of them to Cincinnati. At the same time I have beat Cincy for several position players out of Ohio. It seems that Cincy is recruiting the ATHs harder than the actual position players.

[jpz]

Something I have noticed is that ATH tend to me really good corners and the CPU never puts them at corner. Instead they will put them at wide receiver. Maybe this is just how my dynasty has turned out, but corners seem to be the hardest position to recruit for me. Maybe thats why I have noticed this. Also, the the highest overall ratings for players at each position is usually between 95-99. At corner it is 92 and then 91 and then 90 then just drops off to like 88 or something.

[GGGswim]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpz

Something I have noticed is that ATH tend to me really good corners and the CPU never puts them at corner. Instead they will put them at wide receiver. Maybe this is just how my dynasty has turned out, but corners seem to be the hardest position to recruit for me. Maybe thats why I have noticed this. Also, the the highest overall ratings for players at each position is usually between 95-99. At corner it is 92 and then 91 and then 90 then just drops off to like 88 or something.

I've been fooled by this, even after I added that PocketScout program (maybe year 3-4 of my now 14 yr offline dynasty with Auburn).
Because of my defensive style I need my CBs to be good at Man and even better at Press coverages. Picked up the #939 guy w/ an OVR of 69 last night whose coverage measurables were 88 for Man, 79 for Zone, and 95 for Press, and had SPD at 88 and ACC at 90. Bingo. This guy is a lock to start for me in two years (RS yr 1, nickelback 1 yr b/c I'm young at the CB position) despite his stunted -- for whatever reason(s), even his tackling was in the 60s which for CBs is pretty good -- OVR score.
I re-order the spreadsheet PocketScout creates sorted on Press to find which guys I want to go after, factoring in a few other categories.
I do the same, sorting the spreadsheet on a specific category, with most other positions, too, so I've learned not to become a slave to the OVR.
IMO, find those measurable that fit the position first, then toss aside the guys that fit that mold but for other reasons (AWR? SPD? STR?) don't make the cut for what you need (i.e. a 90 Press CB probably isn't that strong with only 80 SPD and 75 ACC).

[44drob]

In my Oregon dynasty all the 5 star athletes go to florida or ohio state for some reason????