EA, take a page from your own book.

[canes21]

Recruiting at a small school is no different than recruiting at a big school. Yes, the pitches are different, but that is it. And though those pitches do have a pretty big effect, there needs to be more. EA needs to take a page from their own book, and then expand on it too.

In the NCAA basketball games you had a budget of points for recruiting. Unlike in the football games, those points were to be used all season. So, if you really wanted, you could waste all your points in one week, or you could be smart and spread your points out over the entire season.

Another thing that made this system was great was that local players were cheaper to recruit. This would make getting the players in your own backyard more important. Say you are North Texas. You're not going to have a big budget, so you're going to want to get as many TX players as possible, but that is going to be difficult with all the other TX schools, especially when they're all better schools too.

NCAA basketball's recruiting also had other features that I absolutely would love to see in NCAAF. It was just a boring either quick call or call a player from 10 minutes to 60 minutes. You had the option to send a letter of interest, call the recruit, visit them at home, go watch their game, request tape, talk to their HS coach, etc. All of these had their pros and cons too. A letter of interest was cheap, but didn't really help you gain ground on anyone. It just helped you make the list of interested schools. Going to a game not only helped you, but unlike just sending a scout, it gave you a big boost of interest with that recruit, but it was a very expensive thing to do, especially on out of state recruits.

I think EA needs to go this route with the recruiting in their football games. It's too stale getting 10 hours to spend on phone calls every week of the season. Every team has the same pool of recruits they can get which is not fun or realistic.

A powerhouse program will have enough points to visit players down the road or across the country, but a small school will barely have the budget to recruit anyone outside of the state.

This would add more depth to dynasty mode and would also make it more challenging and fun to build up a small school. Just imagine starting at Akron and 10 seasons later you're recruiting top talent not only from Ohio, but you've had so much success you are able to get top recruits from Florida, California, etc.

And to build off this "new" recruiting system, I'd like to see those Budget Points spent elsewhere. Maybe instead of spending all your points on recruiting, you also had the option to make your stadium bigger, or to just build a brand new stadium. You had the option to build better facilities, hire better coaches, etc.

EA would need to expand on coaches. They'd need specific ratings for them to differentiate them. There could be training staffs, strength and conditioning coaches, etc.

This could make every dynasty play out differently and make many different unique styles of play. I may be a guy who hires above average coaches, but not great ones, but I make sure to have the best facilities and then save the rest for recruiting. This style would allow me to get great talent and allow them to have the chance to progress greatly, but my lack of spending on great coaches would mean my players never reach their full potentials.

That would make powerhouses really powerhouses and would help make coaches really matter. With one hire a program could be made or destroyed in game just like real life. For example, say Ball State hires a new coach and that coach starts to progress into a great coach. He is able to recruit decent players and then transform them into good players which is enough to get good success in their conference. Eventually he wins so many games and bowls that Ball St's budget gradually grows over the season and they are able to afford new facilities and the coaches are all able to recruit around the nation. That would lead to Ball St becoming a bigger program, drawing in good talent that progresses into great talent. They eventually change conferences and become a solid top 25 program year in and year out..

Having all of those variables and options would make dynasty a more engaging and fun experience. You'd have to think of how to spend your points. Focus too much in one area and all the others will suffer and you won't progress the program like you should be, or you may even hurt the program. You could spend all your money on good coaches, but not have the money to get good facilities or recruits, so those coaches are left with the tough job of working with local recruits and though they may get them to perform to their potentials, they're still not a great level of talent and they don't see the success they imagined.

Ways of earning funds/points could be easy too. EA could use realistic and "game" ways to get them. Being in a conference with a prestige of A could give your team a guaranteed 200 points a year while a conference with a B would give you 150. A bowl birth could earn you 50 points, a win would be 100 points, a BCS birth could be 100 points and a BCS win could be 200 points. Winning the BCS title could get you 500 points.

Some of the more generic "game" ways of earning points could be every 100 yards your QB threw for gave you 10 points, every 100 rushing yards was 10 points, etc.

So, what do you guys think?

[NateDogPack12]

This is a great post, and I agree with your thought process. Part of the reason they don't do this is because NCAA Football is played by much more mainstream people than say college basketball was, so the recruiting system now though somewhat repetitive, is simplistic enough the common joe can attack it and enjoy it. This points system would scare off many of the "average" fans.

Overall, I'm happy with the recruiting system now. NCAA 12 just messed up the distribution of recruits.