Thoughts on Over Signing, Cutting Players and Recruiting in Dynasty Mode

[Buckeyed]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pielet

In real life scholarship are simply 1yr renewable contracts. If you want to play realistically, you shouldn't cut any NEW recruits but can cut everyone else as you have to decide whether or not to "renew" their scholarship. The new recruits have a legally binding scholarship for one year and thus they cannot be cut. Over recruiting is realistic as all the big time programs do it. The problem, in my opinion, is EAs 70 man roster limit versus 85 (I believe off memory) in real life. I am sure this limit by EA has to do with memory or something due to adding over 1500 new players.

Not all big programs do this. Bama, yes they do. It is part of the game though. Fair? Nope! Does cutting guys affect the coaches prestige or rating at all?

[Pielet]

Quote: Originally Posted by Buckeyed

Not all big programs do this. Bama, yes they do. It is part of the game though. Fair? Nope! Does cutting guys affect the coaches prestige or rating at all?

It doesn't in real life why would it in the game? It's situation normal in the SEC. Yes, all big programs grab and take as much as they can. Football coaches, Administrators, etc have millions of reasons (their salaries) to do so.

In reality the NCAA is simply institutional slavery for collegiate athletes.

[Warren Piecee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pielet

In real life scholarship are simply 1yr renewable contracts. If you want to play realistically, you shouldn't cut any NEW recruits but can cut everyone else as you have to decide whether or not to "renew" their scholarship. The new recruits have a legally binding scholarship for one year and thus they cannot be cut. Over recruiting is realistic as all the big time programs do it. The problem, in my opinion, is EAs 70 man roster limit versus 85 (I believe off memory) in real life. I am sure this limit by EA has to do with memory or something due to adding over 1500 new players.

I am not a game designer. Someone who claimed to have the knowledge of one and once posted on this board remarked that available memory on the DVD is not an issue in as far as revisions to the game are concerned. I had assumed it was. I do not know if this person was correct.

The level of realism I mentioned relates to the impact how one handles cutting and over signing has on the overall talent level on a roster. It is the talent level that I seek to make more realistic.

[Warren Piecee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pielet

It doesn't in real life why would it in the game? It's situation normal in the SEC. Yes, all big programs grab and take as much as they can. Football coaches, Administrators, etc have millions of reasons (their salaries) to do so. In reality the NCAA is simply institutional slavery for collegiate athletes.

Is it fair to call them slaves when they are given a free $200,000 college education for their "work" and they are not forced to play football? I do agree with you that some players are exploited but NOT because none of them receive a salary.

[Pielet]

Quote: Originally Posted by Warren Piecee

Is it fair to call them slaves when they are given a free $200,000 college education for their "work" and they are not forced to play football? I do agree with you that some players are exploited but NOT because none of them receive a salary.

That argument is laughable considering those coaches could give two craps about their "education" hence they'll cut them whenever it suits them.

So the NCAA gets BILLIONS and d1 athletes get a 200k education. That seems fair. Even further the NCAA gets BILLIONS (10.8 to be exact) for the men's basketball tournament while the athletes get:

68 teams x
20 man max roster avg x
200k =
272,000,000

Sure seems fair to me. Pros at least get 50% of ALL revenues. I'm simply looking at one revenue stream and ignoring: conference TV rights, merchandising, ticket revenue, parking, concessions, etc. Its nice to be a monopoly like the NCAA exploiting typically poor student athletes.

[Warren Piecee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pielet

That argument is laughable considering those coaches could give two craps about their "education" hence they'll cut them whenever it suits them. So the NCAA gets BILLIONS and d1 athletes get a 200k education. That seems fair. Even further the NCAA gets BILLIONS (10.8 to be exact) for the men's basketball tournament while the athletes get: 68 teams x 20 man max roster avg x 200k = 272,000,000 Sure seems fair to me. Pros at least get 50% of ALL revenues. I'm simply looking at one revenue stream and ignoring: conference TV rights, merchandising, ticket revenue, parking, concessions, etc. Its nice to be a monopoly like the NCAA exploiting typically poor student athletes.

If a college was a business and had owners or stockholders I would agree with you. It is not and has none. Colleges are non-profits and so football does not generate profits. The money it brings in funds college athletic departments. In all but a small number of cases college sports, including football, actually costs more than it brings in. Most college football teams lose money. If players were paid tuition would be raised. Any money over expenses is invested back into the college and helps to further its educational mission.

Coaches cannot cut players willy nilly. If they did they would suffer a public relations disaster. There are some abuses of the system but this is not the rule. There is much that I am sure we would agree on in terms of the dark side of the sport but cutting players unfairly is really is not a big issue.

I earned academic scholarships to undergrad and grad school. My scholarships were not guaranteed. If I did not perform academically they would have been taken away from me. If a college athlete does not give his or her all for his or her team athletically he or she too could lose his or her scholarship.

Title IV means that you cannot play football players without paying all men and women college athletes. Since most colleges will not be able to afford to do this many would do away with sports all together if the issue was forced.

[Pielet]

Quote: Originally Posted by Warren Piecee

If a college was a business and had owners or stockholders I would agree with you. It is not and has none. Colleges are non-profits and so football does not generate profits. The money it brings in funds college athletic departments. In all but a small number of cases college sports, including football, actually costs more than it brings in. Most college football teams lose money. If players were paid tuition would be raised. Any money over expenses is invested back into the college and helps to further its educational mission. Coaches cannot cut players willy nilly. If they did they would suffer a public relations disaster. There are some abuses of the system but this is not the rule. There is much that I am sure we would agree on in terms of the dark side of the sport but cutting players unfairly is really is not a big issue. I earned academic scholarships to undergrad and grad school. My scholarships were not guaranteed. If I did not perform academically they would have been taken away from me. If a college athlete does not give his or her all for his or her team athletically he or she too could lose his or her scholarship. Title IV means that you cannot play football players without paying all men and women college athletes. Since most colleges will not be able to afford to do this many would do away with sports all together if the issue was forced.

College is a business, a government subsidized business. Private collegiate members of the NCAA even more so. Make no mistake. What affects tuition more? A non ending government subsidy through student loans or paying athletes. One dwarfs the other and is the primary source of rising tuition in this country currently.

The academic scholarship is again without merit. The school didn't earn millions of dollars through your efforts at the university versus a football or basketball student athlete. Of course ALL (men and women's) student athletes should be paid in proportion to the revenues they generate (ie the Alabama football players should take in more than the Louisiana Lafayette women's cross country athletes). Studies have shown if NCAA d1 athletes had a pro style revenue sharing agreement they ALL (that's all d1 athletes) would be paid 5-6 figure salaries.

Even past NCAA presidents (Walter Byers) have criticized itself as simply funding administrators and athletic departments versus benefitting students as a whole. How many states have the highest paid state employee being a football or basketball coach?

Getting back to willy nilly cuts, I think history shows they will and do. They then have the ego to then limit where students can transfer to. Basically you win enough and you can run your team with carte blanch.

Good discussion Warren!

[Warren Piecee]

I just reached bowl season of the current year of my solo dynasty. I can therefore now report on how well only using two-thirds of available recruiting time and scouting time, offering the same number of scholarships as openings on my roster plus two to account for possible player transfers and giving up on recruits who make soft commits to other schools succeeded in producing a recruiting class that is realistic in terms of the talent level added to my roster. The Overall ratings of the recruits from my dynasty are 78, 76, 76, 74, 73, 73, 72, 72, 72, 72, 71, 71, 71, 71, 70, 69, 68, 67, and 64. It is the third best recruiting class in the country!

In order to draw a comparison, I examined the list of verbal recruits my team has for the 2013 recruiting class. I consulted the free web-based recruiting services and determined the average position rank of each while discarding any ranking that was far outside of the others. I then examined the entire universe of recruits in my dynasty and noted the pre-scouting Overall rating of the player at the same rank and position as each one of my recruits. The Overall ratings are 79, 72, 71, 71, 67, 67, 66, 66, 66, 66, 66, 66, 64, 64, 63, 62, and 62.

Obviously, the strategies I have employed have not contributed to make for a recruiting class that is realistic in terms of the talent level added to my roster.

I am going to restart my dynasty and try again. This time I will modify my approach and only use one-half of available recruiting time and scouting time. I may also allow recruits that soft commit to my school to remain on my board but make no further calls to them since this might make me lose some of them to other schools. Another tactic I may adopt is to limit the number of scholarships I offer to the number of openings on my roster. If any of my players do transfer I will have to select players from those players whom the CPU adds to my recruiting class. (I have read that when you offer less than twenty-five scholarships the CPU will add players to your class automatically.) Recruits over and above this amount I will cut. For anyone who cares I will report back on my results.

I have made changes to my working Overall ratings for Virginia Tech's verbal commits for this year's recruiting class because they seemed too low to me. See below for details.