Analyzing Recruiting Classes

[FarFromEer]

I decided to start 11 new dynasties and export the recruiting classes to see if I could find some trends. Of the 29,810 recruits, here's what I found:
5 Star: 375 recruits (1.3%)

4 Star: 2,880 recruits (9.7%)
3 Star: 13,407 recruits (45.0%)

2 Star: 7,087 recruits (23.8%)

1 Star: 6,061 recruits (20.3%)



As would be expected, it isn't a perfect bell curve. What was interesting was that the average difference between pre-scout OVR and actual OVR, 1 stars average an actual OVR that is 1.96 points higher than their pre-scout OVR. The average spread for 5 stars was only 0.06 points higher.

The initial intent of my analysis was to look at how important recruiting pitches are. Proximity to Home is the most common pitch, with 26.7% of all recruits having it and when looking at recruits #1 pitch, it appears 39.7%. The next three most important pitches are Playing Time (19.2%), Program Tradition (13.6%), and Conference Prestige (12.0%). The frequency drops off quite a bit to the next pitch, Championship Contender (4.9%).
It gets more interesting when you look at the breakdown by recruit stars. The top three pitches by rating:
- 5 Star: Conference Prestige (18.2%), Proximity to Home (18.0%), Program Tradition (15.8%)
- 4 Star: Program Tradition (20.6%), Conference Prestige (19.5%), Proximity to Home (19.4%)
- 3 Star: Proximity to Home (23.7%), Program Tradition (18.9%), Playing Time & Conference Prestige (each at 15.3%)
- 2 Star: Proximity to Home (30.3%), Playing Time (25.1%), Conference Prestige (7.8%)
- 1 Star: Proximity to Home (32.8%), Playing Time (28.3%), Campus Lifestyle (5.7%)


There was an interesting phenomenon with the bottom two groups of players. None of the 7,087 two star recruits had Stadium Atmosphere or Television Exposure as a pitch. None of the 6,061 one star recruits had Athletic Facilities, Coach Stability, Pro Potential, or Television Exposure as a pitch.

[StopHammerTime69]

I put together an analysis similar to this for geographic purposes with 4 seasons of data. There were some interesting trends too.


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[apizzle1593]

Jeeze you must be a big statistics guy. That's kind of cool though, because it seems relatively realistic. Like why would a 1star prospect really care about pro-potential? I could see campus lifestyle. You know you're not going to the league, why not go somewhere fun where you can get your education paid for?? Also crazy how proximity to home is so huge, I guess it's like that with real recruits, but still really interesting to think about. The developers must have put in a crap ton of time into this.

[ZN30]

This is awesome. Sounds like the pitches by Star rankings are pretty true to what you'd expect in real life.

I just started a dynasty with a team builder that's a scholarly school, so my house rule is that I can't recruit someone unless they have academic prestige in their top 3. Great to know that limits me to 2.7% of the population.

[moose141]

Not much to add other than bravo to you sir, for putting in the work to figure all of that out... and I'm shocked that for the most part those findings are actually fairly realistic.

[return.specialist]

Quality report. Clear and concise. Interesting finds and good to know. Glad to know the game is coded accurately in this regard, at least intuitively. AND open data!

Quote: Originally Posted by mcfeenathan

What was interesting was that the average difference between pre-scout OVR and actual OVR, 1 stars average an actual OVR that is 1.96 points higher than their pre-scout OVR. The average spread for 5 stars was only 0.06 points higher.

Did you control for JUCO?

[return.specialist]

There it is, if we define JuCo as players who are 'So' or 'Jr' (i.e., not 'Fr').

Interestingly, unless there was some hiccup, there were two 4-star JuCo players in the sample. I've completed 40-50 dynasty seasons and am unable to recall seeing a 4-star JuCo player.

[jovenfisher24]

Quote: Originally Posted by mcfeenathan

I decided to start 11 new dynasties and export the recruiting classes to see if I could find some trends. Of the 29,810 recruits, here's what I found:

I was curious about recruit attributes like speed, awareness, strength, etc. Do you still have the raw spreadsheets that include the attributes?