What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

[TrevJo]

Ya i kno which is why i dont like it. ATH should be able to play a multitude of positions at a high level. not just one and the rest crap.

I forgot to comment on this aspect. But in my experience I have not seen ATH that are only good at one position. I always see them maybe 2 or 4 points ahead of their next best position in their overall ranking, I don't know where you guys are seeing this guys that are 10+ points worse at their second best position.

[stewart#28]

Re: What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

You could also add a HS All American game and have 10-15 players declare at that game...put the 3 hats out and pick...I would like to see a separate area for recruiting JC players..not sure how it would work?...The idea of having a recruiting impact rating for you OC and DC would be nice...i.e Chip Kelly at Oregon has a strong impact on skill position players..and love the connection factor...brother goes to Miami, your younger brother has a better shot being a Hurricane.

[wisgator]

This is a list of things I would like to see implemented.

-HS All-American game.

-Early Enrollee's.

-More hesitant decision making for higher caliber recruits.

-More Non-Qualifiers.

-A separate list of JUCO and PREP propects.

-Give some academic numbers to the recruits. Teams like Notre Dame, Northwestern and so on, have high academic standards that the staff needs to adhere to. There are relaxed standards for athletes, but not all top prospects have the academic pedigree to make the cut at those institutions.

-Fluctuating recruit ratings. Scout and Rivals come out with revised rankings throughout the year. The best example I can give is Cierre Wood (ND signee). If I'm correct, he was the top-rated RB according to Rivals, and garnered a 5-star rating. Now he's a 4-star and has fallen to the bottom half of the Rivals top 100. Another example is Greg Reid (FSU signee). He was a Florida verbal way back in the spring of 2008 and I believe he was a lower 4-star in the first Rivals rankings. He shot up to a 5-star after his performance in the Under-Armor AA game where he had 3-int's. I would like to see the stock of some players rise or fall.

[asu666]

I miss discipline the most. It would be nice to have that be a factor so a lower tier program could take a gamble on guys that may see a lot of pine time for disciplinary reasons, but would otherwise be too good to go to a lower tier program.

[hotboydttjr]

I like the ideas being thrown out here. I would like to the rosters expanded to 100 players per team.

[jfsolo]

Re: What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

NCAA has so many other issues that need to be fixed aside from revamping recruiting. They have too many requests for bells and whistles to fix something that isn't broken without sacrificing quality.

The only problem is that recruiting is too easy. And recruiting is too easy for one simple reason: The CPU is ******** at assessing its needs.
If a CPU school has 1 good LT and 2 lousy RTs coming back, the CPU will not put much focus into recruiting LTs, because they have fulfilled the roster minimum.
Now EA should listen carefully because this is the part that concerns them: The roster minimums need to be increased to 4 or 5 for positions like tackle, guard, defensive end, etc. And the CPU needs to be smarter about recognizing weaknesses and needs for the future. Fix this!

A further problem along the same lines (but not directly related to recruiting) is that a CPU team with two 85 LGs and two 70 RGs will start one of each instead of starting both LGs.

Agree 1000%. The people who created the code, database, A.I., whatever, that is used for CPU recruiting and roster management made mistakes that have haunted the dynasty mode practically since its inception over a decade ago.

I've asked for this bolded part to be fixed in some wish list every year for at least the last ten years, but not this year. I've given up hope of ever seeing it fixed, since it obviously is a low-to-non existent priority for the D team, or way too resource intensive for the perceived limited impact fixing it would have.

[mwjr]

While I used to readily give this label to NFL Draft day, excessive media hype, substance-light coverage and an influx of under-informed fan know-it-alls have soured the once sweet taste of that special weekend in May.

*sigh*

The NFl Draft is in April. No offense, but you lose credibility when you can't even get some of the basics correct.

[JohnDoh]

All great idea by the OP. One thing I would add as well is the ability for recruits to rise and fall along the ESPNU Top 150 throughout the year. Say you start recruiting a kid outside of that top 150 and all the sudden he is having a great senior year (with stats provided) and he jumps into the Top 150. Likewise, kids that are having poor senior campaigns or maybe get hurt, could drop from the Top 150. I prefer the Rivals format for recruiting but being EA has the ESPN license, use the Top 150 format that changes throughout the course of the recruiting year... it would add alot!

[dansaint]

One pitch I'd love to see in the game is "family connection". You see a lot of times a kid will go to a school because his father was a great player there...or his grandfather...or a brother.

As with all...don't overdo it...but allow you to really push that...the family legacy.

[JeffHCross]

Great write-up, but one disagreement. *MOST* college football fans are not hardcore. *MOST* NCAA gamers are not hardcore. I went to Ohio State and was once of the few (even counting that the majority of my friends were student section members) that cared about either real-life recruiting or NCAA. The majority of the NCAA gamers I met were pick-up-and-play-ers. One of them even went so far to edit the Ohio State team to all 99 OVRs so he could dominate.

The simulation market is ridiculously small compared to the casual market. I agree that EA could and should do a better job of courting both, but they do have to give options for the casual gamer.

Look at it another way. Even the most hardcore NCAA gamer might not be interested in recruiting. He might just like playing the games. You've got to have options for all.

But otherwise, very good article.

[JeffHCross]

You guys are nuts on the ATH thing. Recognizing what position an ATH is going to be good at is as easy as breathing.

Not so. I recruited a 3-star athlete who's ratings were show as if he were an FS. He was a 72 at FS, and 70 or so at CB. Normal, right?

He's an 81 at QB. 88 THP, 80 THA.

[Sportsbuck]

Re: What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

I'd like to expand on the ATH point Chris.

Make it so that players aren't just good at one position when they come in, make them be able to play at multiple. Not all players end up playing at where they came in. For example, Anthony Gonzalez and Ted Ginn, Jr. were both recruited as CB's and ended up being first round picks at WR. They should obviously have a position where they are listed at but they should be able to have good ratings at the other spots as well.

[ballaspence9493]

i agree with a couple people on here on the matter that there should be busts and jems. this is needed or else big schools become dominant in ncaa as years progress.

[lawsindell]

Some improvements I've been stewing on for a while, recruiting and otherwise:

- The ability to spend more time recruiting and less time practicing (or vice versa) if you so choose during the season. For example, if a season is totally shot for me, I would love to throw myself into recruiting to build for the future, but the fact is that I can't recruit any more than anyone else. You should have the option of neglecting your current team (with a corresponding risk that your play would suffer) in order to spend more time recruiting. This is absolutely a choice that real-life programs have to make every year and it would add a little variety to the seasons.

- The ability to work on certain things in practice during the season (and in the off-season, for that matter). For instance, one of my dynasty teams is the worst tackling team in NCAA history. Honestly, I've never seen anything quite like it. Even if I control the defensive player and lay into a diminutive running back full on, there's about a 75% chance I'm going to bounce right off of him. The problem is: how do you improve team tackling? You can't. You just have to get through the season and hope your recruiting and off-season improvements (which are totally random) solve the problem for you. I wish they'd take a cue from the NFL Head Coach game and allow you to focus on specific issues each week in practice. This would also address the ATH problem that everyone here seems to be dealing with. You could use practice to take an ATH who was an option QB in high school and turn him into the WR you need by spending time teaching him routes and running catching drills.

- Specific tasks for players. You should have a Game Strategy option each week where you can assign specific tasks to specific players that would override the play you call for that player. Besides the obvious benefit of correcting the ridiculous over-effectiveness of the option, it could help you deal with all sorts of things: a scrambling QB, a star WR, a dominant pass-rushing DE (if such a thing existed), etc. and then the other team would have to make adjustments instead of just relying on the same thing all game (a crime I'm as guilty of as anyone - even if I hate myself for it).

- Hiring and running a staff. How cool would it be to try and steal other gamers' offensive coordinators or hotshot recruiters? Or you could go out and hire the hot new DC and get some exotic new scheme by bringing him in. It would also be a way to help you improve specific areas of your team. Your team full of young, inexperienced LBs? Go out and hire Jim Ryan as your LB coach to turn them into All-Americans. Of course, you'd have to have a budget so you'd have to make choices and compromises, but, man, that would be awesome.

- In general, there should be more mid-week tasks for you to play with. Player discipline issues, booster issues, media issues, etc. The old "play, recruit, play, recruit, play, recruit, play, recruit" routine gets a little old - especially when recruiting sucks.

There's just a few thoughts I've had.

[hustle55]

Make ATHs, Athletes i really hope they do this in Ncaa 10