For All You Recruiting Junkies.....

[bnb]

here's another tip i got from this board last year: i never have more than 10 recruits on my board at one time. this allows me to give each recruit a full hour of attention. as i sign a player, i replace him with another. i do this throughout the season/post-season and have had great success.

[tbbucsfan001]

Quote: Originally Posted by bnb

here's another tip i got from this board last year: i never have more than 10 recruits on my board at one time. this allows me to give each recruit a full hour of attention. as i sign a player, i replace him with another. i do this throughout the season/post-season and have had great success.

Huh. Never done that. I'll try it out.

[37]

Quote: Originally Posted by bnb

here's another tip i got from this board last year: i never have more than 10 recruits on my board at one time. this allows me to give each recruit a full hour of attention. as i sign a player, i replace him with another. i do this throughout the season/post-season and have had great success.

That sounds good but when my first recruit signs in Weeks 10-14, not much i can really do

[football5680]

I recruit for myself.
The CPU is terrible when recruiting.

I used Oklahoma for a dynasty and ever year i could get about 6-10 5 star recruits and the rest would be 4 star except for a kicker or punter.

The system I use to Recruit is also Very effective
What I do is iI scout only 15 players at the beggining. I usually go for the best player who has me in his top 3 but never settle for a 3 star prospect.
The first Week you give all the prospect 40 minutes which is an even time for every recruit.
Whenever a player commits you no longer have to give him his 40 minutes so you will be able to give 2 recruits and hour total. These should be used on guys who dont have you as their #1 school.
Eventually you will get down to 10 recruits and you will be able to give each one an hour.
Any time a player commits when you are down to 10 recruits you need to go back to the prospects list and add a guy who other teams are not scouting hard.
You can tell who these players are because when most people are in the green these players will be in the yellow.
Save maybe 4-5 scholarships for the offseason because more recruits get added and you could end up with better players

[Woodcutta]

I don't know if this has been mentioned already but something that I find very annoying is recruiting a 5-star recruit that you really, really want (say, Barry Sanders Jr.) but no matter what (offering all three promises, early scholarship offer, and even an A+ visit) you remain 2nd on the list of schools he is interested in. Even after a few weeks of 60 minute pitches, this player signs with another school. Thinking the main cause for this might be a later visit to the school they committed too, you check the other schools he visited and HE WASN'T EVEN SCHEDULED TO VISIT ANOTHER SCHOOL. WTH? If a recruit doesn't insta-commit and doesn't visit a school why in the world would he commit to that school? It wouldn't bug me if this was happened every once and a while but almost every 5-star recruit I don't get falls into this category.

Any thoughts on what I could do better/different to avoid these situations?

[jbrew2411]

I have always done my own recruiting. That is why I play college games over pro games. I love building my school up because I land players that fit my system. I recruit on AA because I feel it gives the most realistic results. I would recommend these few tips.

1) Smaller is better: I keep my board at 15-20 max depending on need.
2) Recruit need first then wants.
3) Replace star players a year before they leave. If I have a star Soph/Jr then I look for a replacement. I end up red shirting them for a year then they step in once the play leaves.
4) I only recruit guys that have me in the top 3 or less then 200 points behind the leader.
5) Recruit pipelines first. You get a point boost per call and have the best chance of landing those players.
6) It's ok to drop a guy if you fall behind.
7) Use you points wisely. I use 40 per week on "needs" and 30 per week on "wants".
8) Sometimes no matter what you do you will not sign a player. Happens in real life as well. Goes back to #6.
9) Offer within first few weeks. I only put guys on my board that I would sign so I don't see the point of waiting around.
10) This year we can fix EA's lack of skill at creating recruits with ratings that match the skill set so don't be afraid to sign 3* guys. I just signed a 3* ATH who runs a 4.4 but has a C+ in ACC & AGL. No big deal I will just fix him.

[bmxdmx]

The ting that annoys me is if there is a recruit and i'm -20 behind another school, offer him a scholly, and he commits to the other school eventhough they waited till after me to offer. I figure the schooly plus 60 mins would be enough to keep me in the running. guess not. it's like the kids went to the other school and begged for one.

[Rebel10]

I do pretty much all of my own recruiting, with the exception of quick calls which I mostly use when I'm a #1 and up by a lot of points. Or at the beginning of the season and have a full board.

I also set limits for myself... If I'm 600-points behind late in the season with a player who is being recruited by top schools, or I'm out of his top 5 / Top 3 when he widdles it down to that, then I drop him and focus on the players I have on my board, or try to pick up a late lesser-ranked player. A lot of times lowly ranked 4* guys and highly ranked 3* players turn out to be the same, and occasionally, the 3* player is better.

I usually sign top 30 classes on All American with any team... Started with Duke, who I believe was a C overall prestige. My first season, I had 24 3* players and 1 4* player, which was actually too much. Finished #28 in the recruiting. My second season I widdled own and added three 4* players, and eleven 3* players, and ended up #20. In my third season, I'm in game 8 (so I guess week 10 or so), and I have three 3* players signed (low for this time of year), but I've got a solid chance to sign five 4* players, and will likely get eight or nine 3* players.

I try not to offer scholarships until I'm #1 on the guys list. For one, I've always operated under the suspicion that if you offer a scholarship and go hard after a, say, top running back, then other running backs may shy away from your school because they know that they'll be behind that top RB. So, unless I have a realistic chance of getting him, I don't use the scholarship. The only other times I do use it are when I'm going to hit desperation mode on a guy that I want, but he's getting closer and closer to his top school... so I start to throw the farm at him, 60-minute calls, scholarship, schedule visits, and try to challenge the other team on almost every weakness.

Also, finally, the visit is really important and so be sure to use those "Find out his interest" and "Sway his interest" choices. Don't just to to hard sell every time... swaying interests is much more balanced in NCAA '12, you're more likely to sway a guy, but less likely for it to become his "most" (In NCAA '11 seemed like every successful sway resulted in a "MOST" but they were less likely).

A major tip for me is not to allow the CPU to add players to the board, or else you'll lose focus. I'd rather have 20 players that I've got a solid shot at signing, than have a full 35 players on the board every time... I think it makes it impossible to keep track of who I really want. Make sure that your recruiting strategy (I believe in 'coaching options') matches how YOU the player actually recruit too, because more players will be interested in your school of that particular type. If you recruit heavily on WR's or speed WRs (I forget if it's that granular), but you have way too many on your roster, pair it down in the recruiting strategy and you'll see fewer WR's interested. Right now I've got WAY too many WR's .. like 11 of them, but they're all pretty decent to good, and so I don't want to cut them.

Only thing that really annoys me about recruiting is the players' responses to your invitations... "What the hell coach I was thinking You'd NEVER invite me to your school!" "Coach I've been waiting for weeks!" Which I know just isn't true because I invite to campus as soon as I possibly can, usually as SOON as they've hit top 3 I'll invite them. So they are full of crackers.

The ONE thing I wish that they would add to recruiting or off-season are like skills tests, drills or 11-on-11 practice scrimmages with only frosh/redshirt-freshmen. Maybe even like a couple weeks of 'practice' games against walk-ons and fake scrubs (similar to the generated rosters of the FCS teams). It feels so anti-climactic to work on building a team for the whole season, and then, you go through week 5 of off season recruiting and "well, that's it, time to start fresh with a new batch and do it all over again." If they added a Freshman camp in off season that you could sim or play, and get a few statistics out of it, I think that it'd be a great addition to give you a chance to play with some of your new players before red-shirting them or cutting the fat. I'd love to see position battles between red shirt freshmen and the incoming frosh, even if it's just for, say, 3 practice scrimmages. I think it'd add a lot to the game and give you a sense of accomplishment when you get to finally take hold of that gem stud Frosh 81-overall receiver that you've brought in.