According to Rivals, in 2012 1-star teams averaged signing 5.6 3-star recruits and 2-star prestige teams averaged slightly higher 7.8 3-star recruits. In short, there wasn't much difference in recruiting results.
In a handful of lab sesssions I discovered 1-star teams land approx 1.8 3-star recruits per team while the 2-star teams sign 10.5. In short, AI recruiting turns 1-star teams into doormats while giving 2-star teams far more influence than they have in real life. It skews your dynasty progressions way out of reality.
But here's the worst part. I put the state of Louisiana under my lab microscope because it has two 1-star teams (ULL and ULM). At the onset of the recruiting year an average of ten 3-star recruits in the state listed ULL it their top three. If this happens in the real world, the ULL staff would be on those recruits like butter on toast. Two months later in my lab dynasty how many of those recruits do you think ULL had offered? If you said zero, you're right. Would you be shocked to learn ULL had five 1-star commits by then? In sum, the AI ignored the interested 3-star prospects and stuffed the ULL roster with weaker players. Generally, the Offer/Interest feature of the game's recruiting cycle is a sham for lower-prestige teams and is basically an eye-wash feature throughout.
What must EA do? 1) Tweak programming to bring the number of commitments in line with real-world results for bottom-tier teams. 2)College football recruiting is highly competitive, (some say cut-throat) and EA must allow far more offers into the recruiting cycle early-on to add suspense and realism to the process. It's just plain silly for the off-line player to find tons of unoffered quality prospects 3/4 of the way through the recruiting year.
Comment