recruiting freshman

[ucat4]

Cust curious to see how early you guys are recruiting these kids. Personally I don't look at anybody before their senior season. Am I missing out on some potential great recruits? Do you guys have better luck recruiting freshman and soh's up until they decide?

[R1zzo23]

Re: recruiting freshman

I usually just focus on recruiting seniors and if I fill out my allotment of scholarship offers for a season by the early recruiting period, I'll begin scouting the juniors.

That just happened in my 2nd season at St. John's, so I'm now recruiting a bunch of HS juniors. The thing is, I have SEVEN juniors on my roster now, which means I'll have seven scholarships available next season.

To me, that's a lot of kids to bring in, so I've added two sophomores and one freshman to my target list. So if I don't get someone to sign for all seven scholarships, I'll carry the excess scholarships over to the next season where I've been recruiting these sophomores for two years now.

[sooners52794]

Re: recruiting freshman

Turn on assisted recruiting, the cpu will scout spohs and juniors for you even if you cant see. one thing i do is sort the list of hs seniors down so that theyre listed from first to second and so on...and switch to juniors. the guys at the top will ALWAYS be all americans as seniors, so you can get a good lead. i thought that was neat when i did it, but also realize that even if you get a high school underclassman at 100% intrest, itll go lower when hes a senior, some might be at 98 while ive had others drop intrest in every school down in the 50's

[jayzon]

Re: recruiting freshman

one thing i do is sort the list of hs seniors down so that theyre listed from first to second and so on...and switch to juniors. the guys at the top will ALWAYS be all americans as seniors, so you can get a good lead. i thought that was neat when i did it, but also realize that even if you get a high school underclassman at 100% intrest, itll go lower when hes a senior, some might be at 98 while ive had others drop intrest in every school down in the 50's

I've also had great success with early recruiting -- managed to steal two straight Mr. Basketball's from L'Ville by getting a jump on the recruits early. Sooners is right, though: there are no guarantees. I put points upon points into one guy and had him in the 90s at the end of his Junior season; he came out Senior year and had me at 54.

On average, however, it pays off more often than it doesn't. At least, it has in my experience.

[Jukeman]

Re: recruiting freshman

it pays off to recruit early but dont expect to get that recruit everytime otherwise recruiting would be easy....not to mention you are not the only team recruiting this player since he was a freshman

[jello1717]

Re: recruiting freshman

it pays off to recruit early but dont expect to get that recruit everytime otherwise recruiting would be easy....not to mention you are not the only team recruiting this player since he was a freshman

This right here is exactly why you should start recruiting kids when they're Freshmen. If you don't, they'll still have other teams recruiting them which will make it more difficult for you to sign them when they become Seniors. If you only target SRs, it'll be extremely difficult to sign anyone that's been recruitable since he was a FR. About the only ones you could sign are the ones that are added to the SR pool every year (IE. new players that are added to the list when they're SRs that weren't on the list, and thusly, not recruitable until then).

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

Re: recruiting freshman

Also, by recruiting early, a lot of times u can invite them to your campus the first week of their senior year which is huge in my opinion.

I remember back in 2k6 or something for the regular xbox, I turned NC A&T into a powerhouse (88+ overall every year) by recruiting kids as freshman. I don't think the other schools recruited early back then and I didn't know any better so I ended up with a sick team.

[tweadle]

Re: recruiting freshman

At first I just recruited SR's and struggled to land any serious talent. I became a believer when I recruited several guys from FR up to SR. and landed the #5 overall recruit who became my first and only All American in my OSU legacy and did it as a SO. Out of that class I also got the #21 overall and #24 overall. By far my best recruiting class ever and all 3 of whom I recruited since they were Freshman.

[jello1717]

Re: recruiting freshman

My last recruiting class is a perfect example of why you should recruit them as FR and up. I'm playing as Michigan and my first recruiting class are seniors now. Here's how I have recruited so far:
SR: 1-5*(#21 OVR), 3-4*
JR: 3-4*
SO: 2-5*(#15, #16)
Which brings me to my FR class that I have been recruiting since they were FR. This year I have signed:
PG: 4* (#39), 79 OVR rating (I could've had a 5* but this guy had better attributes that I care about)
SF: 5* (#6), 80 OVR
C: 5* (#2), 87 OVR (This guy is tied for the best OVR rating as a FR that I've ever seen)
SG: 5* (#1), 86 OVR
So, because I've recruited these guys since they were FR, I was able to sign 3 of the top 6 picks and I would've never have been able to sign them if I didn't start when they were FR. Keep in mind, however, that this was very, very lucky and the result of everything aligning correctly. You can't tell as a FR (or even as a SO or JR) who will be the top picks as SRs. I got very fortunate here (of my newest group of recruits, only 2 of them are even 5*s and the highest ranked one is #15 and I doubt that I'll be able to sign him).

Because I targeted these guys as FR, I was fortunate enough to sign the best recruiting class that I will ever see again.

[pacsun]

Re: recruiting freshman

I usually just focus on recruiting seniors and if I fill out my allotment of scholarship offers for a season by the early recruiting period, I'll begin scouting the juniors.

That just happened in my 2nd season at St. John's, so I'm now recruiting a bunch of HS juniors. The thing is, I have SEVEN juniors on my roster now, which means I'll have seven scholarships available next season.

To me, that's a lot of kids to bring in, so I've added two sophomores and one freshman to my target list. So if I don't get someone to sign for all seven scholarships, I'll carry the excess scholarships over to the next season where I've been recruiting these sophomores for two years now.

is there any way to add extra scholarships to a recruiting class? eg, can you make cuts early in the season to add roster space which will add an open scholarship for that recruiting year?

[duke776]

Re: recruiting freshman

I recruit all of them, though freshman are (obviously) the least recruited by me. I try to get my SR. recruits signed by the short in season signing period. That only happens when I only have one or two scholarships though.

After that I move on to juniors, and scout some sophmores and some freshman. This year, I am actually going to continue to recruit a Sr. that I don't have a scholarship for. I think one of my (bad)players might transfer, and I'm hoping he does. I'm not going to go all out on recruiting him, since there's no guarentee that my player transfers, but I want to have a back up option if he does.

[Jonesy]

Re: recruiting freshman

Is it correct that you can only watch a video of a FR in their first year anyway like you can't call them, scout games etc untill they become a jr?

[duke776]

Re: recruiting freshman

Is it correct that you can only watch a video of a FR in their first year anyway like you can't call them, scout games etc untill they become a jr?

I was just about to ask the same question. I'm pretty sure that is correct, because I've never been able to do anything besides watch video for FR and SO in this series, but wanted confirmation on it.

[jello1717]

Re: recruiting freshman

is there any way to add extra scholarships to a recruiting class? eg, can you make cuts early in the season to add roster space which will add an open scholarship for that recruiting year?

There are a few ways to monkey around with your scholarships to move them around from year to year (so you don't end up with 7 guys all in the same year). I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but here's how you can do it.
1. Hold a scholarship for next year. IE. if you have 7 schollies, only offer 5 or so.
2. Redshirt a player to push his scholly until next year.
3. Have a player transfer away. This gives you his scholly at the end of the season.
4. Have a player enter the draft early. His scholly won't be available, however, until the beginning of the next year. IE. if a JR leaves early, you won't get his scholly any sooner than if he had stayed his SR year, so you basically lose a scholarship for a year.
5. Cut a player from your team at the beginning of the year. Like players entering the draft, you won't get the scholly until the beginning of next year, so cutting a JR doesn't get you anything. Cutting a SO gives you a scholly 1 year earlier (instead of 2) and cutting a FR gives you a scholly 2 years earlier.

Is it correct that you can only watch a video of a FR in their first year anyway like you can't call them, scout games etc untill they become a jr?

This is correct. For FR and SO you can only get a game tape from them. However, if you place them on your target list (even though you can't contact them again) they know they're on your list and they continue to gain interest in your school. If you don't place them on your list, they won't gain interest as fast.

[spit_bubble]

Re: recruiting freshman

...Am I missing out on some potential great recruits? Do you guys have better luck recruiting freshman and soh's up until they decide?

I would recommend at least looking at local guys and guys close to your program.

Also, if you have extra recruiting points they are well spent on the younger high school players.