Recruiting Troubles

[Donovan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Save the Manatees

Also, you seem to think the recruiting is realistic, but how come more often than not I find that my 3-star guy is rated higher than my 4-star guy at the same position. Happens with 4-star being higher than 5-star too.

Uh, that is realistic, its called sleepers, diamonds in the rough. Not every player turns out as projected. Ryan Leaf was a great college player, not much of a pro. Priest Holmes was a great pro, not much of a college player.

So if you think thats a bad part of the game, something EA got wrong, you're nuts. It may be the best part of recruiting, imo.

[EricM]

Quote: Originally Posted by Save the Manatees

Once again, 36-1 as the coach with back-to-back National Titles there, so I'm saying shouldn't I be able to do better than having 3 out of every 4 guys being my second choice at each position?

Yes, you should be able to do better than that. And it's not hard to do much better than that in this game, so something you're doing is wrong. If you want to know what to do differently, tell us what you've been doing.

[Save the Manatees]

Quote: Originally Posted by EricM

Yes, you should be able to do better than that. And it's not hard to do much better than that in this game, so something you're doing is wrong. If you want to know what to do differently, tell us what you've been doing.

What I'm doing wrong...? I don't know, I tell them what they wanna hear. Most of my pitches are at "Elite" level by now.. I've progressed in my dynasty since last time btw. I've now won 3 out of the last 4 National titles, and I'm currently 9-0 en route to a 4th.

Still, I've lost all my 4 and 5-star offensive linemen at this point in the season, in fact I've noticed it's almost always the o-line I have trouble with. With skill players I do okay, but my line is becoming more and more average as the dynasty goes on.

To Donovan and those with similar views. Fine, so my comment about the star rankings may be off. Point taken.

First off, I'm not too concerned about NCAA to Madden. Leaf led his high school team to a state championship (supposedly) and then went on to be a great COLLEGE quarterback. Yeah, he did eventually become a big baby, but after college. I'm not looking for NO sleepers, but it happens at almost every position every year I recruit. If that's realistic, then fine, my mistake.

What bothers me though about recruiting is the prospect "Pitch Importance". Like the prospect who had "Pro Factory" as the most important thing chose Indiana over Notre Dame, and another who had "Television Exposure" as their top thing chose Tennessee over Notre Dame (Who I think has most of if not all their games covered by NBC). I realize "most important" is not the only thing, but still. I can only pitch them what they tell me they like.

Anyways, I'm sure you guys will find something else you don't like about my comments. Still looking for help on the recruiting. Could it be that linemen only want to run block and I run the "Run and Shoot"?

[djcorrosive]

First, let me assure you that recruiting the O-line is by far the hardest. Just as in real life, these recruits are hard to come by and saught after by every school in the nation. I use Ohio State and often have trouble pulling in 4*-5* recruits on the O-line on a regular basis. I'm lucky to get even one.

Second, one of the most important things you can do to garner the recruits interest is use the "sway" interest pitch. If you are elite in a certain category and the recruits interest is only average, try to sway his interest higher. The more high to very high interest the recruit has in your schools strong categories the better. Conversely, if the recruit has a strong interest in a category you happen to be weak in, try to sway the recruit's interest down. This really goes a long way in helping you land recruits. Especially if you can sway down interests that may be high for other schools and not your own. Keep trying to sway the recruits interests every week until each category has the pad lock icon next to it.

Third, if you don't do this already, where the recruit is ranked on your recruiting board and how many other recruits you have in the same position affect a recruits interest. If you are trying to recruit a 5* RG who is #20 on your board and you have 3 or 4 other RGs on your board who are ranked higher than he is this recruit is not likely to have much of an interest in your school. Don't be afraid to rearrange the recruits ranking on your board as their interest and your needs change.

Quote: Originally Posted by Save the Manatees

What I'm doing wrong...? I don't know, I tell them what they wanna hear. Most of my pitches are at "Elite" level by now.. I've progressed in my dynasty since last time btw. I've now won 3 out of the last 4 National titles, and I'm currently 9-0 en route to a 4th. Still, I've lost all my 4 and 5-star offensive linemen at this point in the season, in fact I've noticed it's almost always the o-line I have trouble with. With skill players I do okay, but my line is becoming more and more average as the dynasty goes on. To Donovan and those with similar views. Fine, so my comment about the star rankings may be off. Point taken. First off, I'm not too concerned about NCAA to Madden. Leaf led his high school team to a state championship (supposedly) and then went on to be a great COLLEGE quarterback. Yeah, he did eventually become a big baby, but after college. I'm not looking for NO sleepers, but it happens at almost every position every year I recruit. If that's realistic, then fine, my mistake. What bothers me though about recruiting is the prospect "Pitch Importance". Like the prospect who had "Pro Factory" as the most important thing chose Indiana over Notre Dame, and another who had "Television Exposure" as their top thing chose Tennessee over Notre Dame (Who I think has most of if not all their games covered by NBC). I realize "most important" is not the only thing, but still. I can only pitch them what they tell me they like. Anyways, I'm sure you guys will find something else you don't like about my comments. Still looking for help on the recruiting. Could it be that linemen only want to run block and I run the "Run and Shoot"?

[Keyser Soze]

I just finished season 2 with Michigan. I have only lost 1 game between the 2 seasons so far. So going into my bowl game I expected to have a pretty unbelievable class. All I have is 3 5-star and 6 4-star kids. I have zero 5-stars remaining on my target list and only 3 more 4-star, rest are 3 and 2-star. IMO, recruiting is done REALLY, REALLY well this year and the kids on here that claim to rack up the huge number of 5 and 4 star recruits are simply cheating. I 100% don't cheat and I think EA did a nice job that if you recruit straight up then your team will not got too good too fast.

[jbrew2411]

I also don't see a problem. I restarted my dynasty after the last patch with new rosters. I'm UGA at the end of year 1 and I have had the hardest time recruiting. I'm ranked #1 and have had wins over 4 teams ranked in the top 10 at the time I played them. I don't go after many 5* guys because I like to bring guys along and have found the 4* guys to be as good. In years past I could land a class of 5-7 5* guys but not this year. My class is ranked 23rd nationally. This is the way it should be. I'm happy to land 4* guys and build my depth with the 3* guys at positions where I'm deep. There is no problem with this system. Like some one said it is like real life. USC don't get everyone they go after like DeShawn Jackson who choose Cal over USC because Pete promised Turner the #1 jersey and told Jackson a # didn't matter. I read that in a ESPN the Mag. last year. So you can win all the national titles you can but guys will go else where. I had a 4* Safety choose UCF over me last night. EA way to go on fixing the recruiting.

[capone2117]

I agree with you all, the recruiting on here is much better than in years past. I have a 12 team dynasty and you can see the true class differentials between schools like Georgia and schools like UCF. I had tried Notre Dame out, but I had probably 16 5* recruits that I was going to be able to land, before I got pissed at the fact that they beat Michigan in real life and erased their dynasty. In comparison to the other 6 star schools I have played with, Notre Dame gets a whole lot more of the top 5* recruits than any other of the "big" time programs. If you are using Notre Dame and not landing a solid class, you must already be stacked at each position, or not spending the right time with each recruit. I spend most of my time in the early season going after the big stars so that their interest has peaked in my school by week 5. In my current 12 team dynasty, im in week 8 and every team i have has had no less than 4 hard commitments. Several 5* for my big programs, and even the likes of Texas Tech, Kansas, Illinois, UCF, and Louisville. These are really good programs, but not the powerhouses that you would think of. But their constant winning and combined decent recruiting is getting the majority of my top 25 picks for each team.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by Keyser Soze

I just finished season 2 with Michigan. I have only lost 1 game between the 2 seasons so far. So going into my bowl game I expected to have a pretty unbelievable class. All I have is 3 5-star and 6 4-star kids. I have zero 5-stars remaining on my target list and only 3 more 4-star, rest are 3 and 2-star. IMO, recruiting is done REALLY, REALLY well this year and the kids on here that claim to rack up the huge number of 5 and 4 star recruits are simply cheating. I 100% don't cheat and I think EA did a nice job that if you recruit straight up then your team will not got too good too fast.

Recruiting is still too easy but it has to be that way. Nobody wants to take 10+ years to build up a small program. We all want to be able to build a program up quickly. It would be nice to have a slider for recruiting difficulty but that would probably be very hard to implement. I also agree that about your comments about signing 5* prospects in real life. In reality, only about 25-35 kids get that label every year. Signing 10 of them by any school would be unbelievable.

Honestly though, if you only have three 5* kids and six 4* kids at Michigan at the end of the year you are doing a poor job recruiting. I'm in my third year at Colorado (still 4* program) and I've got about five 5* kids and eight 4* kids at the end of the regular season (maybe more). I do know that around week ten I had four 5* and seven 4* commits already (I had 12 hard commits and nobody else had more than 8 I think). I have easily the best class in the country and had the #1 class last year as well. I don't cheat at all. This past year was all post patch as well so I couldn't make extra long phone calls (didn't realize that was a glitch before). With your prestige you should be finding it easier to get kids than me.