For All You Recruiting Junkies.....

[Bigsheen]

you should never listen to recruiting guidlines, imo. Each person has their own way of recruiting players.

[Special27K]

Recruiting Difficulty: All-American

I don't give myself rules like only have X number of recruits on your board or anything, I just fill it out with however many guys I'm interested in. Usually high 20's depending on my school. Lower prestige teams I usually have a rough time finding more than 20-22 guys I like. I don't necessarily recruit every prospect on my board either. Lots of these guys are back up plans. I usually spend time on 12-15 guys a week (50 or 40 minutes per prospect). I don't ever really reorder the depth chart unless its too remind me of a certain player.

Filling out my board

1.) First sort by players interested that have you in their Top 3 and add the prospects who you can sign quickly (either have you #1 or no more than say 100-120 points behind)

2.) Sort by Top 5 and finish finding the prospects interested (Never add a prospect over 250-260 points behind unless you can afford to reach and give that prospect 60 minutes weekly until you decide its wasting time or you get him, as long as its reasonable and not a pipedream of player)

Recruiting

1.) Find those guys who have up at the top of their list and spend 20-30 minutes on them. First pitch always offer the scholarship (If they sign you don't lose all 20-30 minutes just the 10). Don't go silly and offer every one down to 2*'s if you're Michigan or somebody. These guys are going to be more typically high 3* players and for depth. Some higher rated guys will be up there as well though.

2.) Spend an hour on your "Outside shot/reach" guys

3.) Recruit positions of need, the higher up guys (100 points behind) first. The more quickly you sign your needs the more time you have for some superstars or a flashy WR you wanted.

General Rules

1.) Just remove guys who you lose ground on because you've put them on the backburner and fallen behind like 300 and some points off the lead and 4 teams back.

2.) Never offer the scholarship unless you're number one (gives your self the opportunity for the insta-commit) unless its a must to get yourself back in the race for a guy you either absolutely need or can afford to spill hours on and want

3.) Don't go out to FL/CA/TX/OH just cause its FL/CA/TX/OH, those players will come in the future on a regular basis because they're so many of them and the fact that those 4 states are geographically spread out that most teams have one of them as a pipeline already or gain interest from those states just because you're in the region. Win games and it won't matter if those states are pipelines you'll just attract recruits.

4.) Absolutely, its a must, turn off all recruiting assistance (Board/Scholarship/Visit).

I could regularly fill up my class in season doing this, I would sign a consistent 15 or so prospects. Which for me is almost always a full class, I don't use all 25 scholarships, I only sign as many players as available scholarships +3 (The general guidelines the Big10 follows).

[ROSStafarian]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bigsheen

you should never listen to recruiting guidlines, imo. Each person has their own way of recruiting players.

I wouldn't say "dont listen" but dont try and incorporate everything you hear on here to your dynasty, just use things you see on here to your advantage and keep some things you've read in the back of your mind as your recruiting.

EDIT: a lot of the post's i read on here help me out quite a bit.

[Woodcutta]

Quote: Originally Posted by TDenverFan

Some players (IRL and in the game) just really want to go to a certain school for whatever reason.

That isn't my point. My point is this is happening at a much higher rate (at least to me) than it should. Plus, IRL how many players don't visit any schools before making their decisions? The answer is...almost none. They are given a certain amount of visits and almost all of them use every single one of them before making a decision. Sometimes they use all of the visits even after they have decided which school to go to. This was a problem in last year's game for me and it seems to be an even bigger problem for me in this year's game.

[buckeye02]

The CPU recruiting is horrible. To me the recruiting is half the fun, and in reality is half of the battle.

Plus i have a pretty flawless recruiting strategy that works on all levels of difficulty.

[bgeno]

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.

I don't go as low as 10, but it's important to not max out your recruiting board. I get a two or three players at need positions then some others guys I'm really interested in. I don't like to have more than 25 at the very most.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rebel10

One more thing to add -- it's MUCH easier for mid-tier schools to sign players in the off season, those "New players have been added to the board." As Duke, a mid-level team, I've easily added a couple of 4* players, and in my first season, easily got to the #1 position for a 5*, #1 Wide Receiver, only to kick myself because I used up all my scholarships... He ended up going, literally, to Idaho. Idaho was the 4th team on his list, but because me, Notre Dame, and Iowa all had maxed out our scholarships, he dropped to the #4 Idaho... Which is a great way to help mix up the talent pool, a real problem in NCAA '11. Even though I was pissed I didn't get him, I was thrilled to see him drop to a crappy team and come in as a 79-overall on a C- offense. Following his career for sure.

That's pretty awesome. I hope it happens with some regularity. Like you said, there was a major issue with ALL the good talent going to the top schools in NCAA 11, so this could certainly help.


I'm running as the OC in my dynasty, so I'm not recruiting. I will add a recruit or two to the board or mix up the rankings a bit, but I'm staying out of it until I'm HC.

[zmcman1]

I've done all my recruiting with UCLA in my first year. Currently I've got 20 recruits already committed and have 6 others with me #1 on their board during conference championship week. Good enough for the #19 class right now.

Usually I start off by adding 30-35 players that I have interest in during the pre-season, but then trim that down to about 25-27 before I start my first week's worth of recruiting. On the players that have me #1 that first week, I only make a 10min phone call to offer them the scholarship. They either insta-commit or I get a nice boost from giving them the scholarship. Then I use the rest of my minutes on the rest of the board.

After that week, I trim down again to about 23-25 and then recruit normally from there. As players commit, I start to add more. Usually manage to balance out the time evenly so players never slide down.

Recruiting is easily my favorite part of dynasty.

[buckeye02]

I hold around 15, but only talk to the first 10 through the first 3-4 weeks or so. If i notice that im not going to get any competion on some guys, i will lessen their minutes and give some to the guys that are listed as 11-15.

Having less on your boards means you will get the perks (X2, unlock, and instant commit) on guys you actually want.