In some situations, I actually look to poach conference mates.Not for nothing but I know the most about those guys.   I know there exact post season cash and usually can tell if they had carryover cash, their recruiting style, what states they scouted, and if they had to fend off others for their recruits.

i don't do it often but I wouldn't think twice about doing it.

Posted by dacj501 on 4/3/2014 10:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrg1037 on 4/3/2014 9:24:00 PM (view original):
I think there's a big difference between battling and poaching. Battling is when two schools both get on a player fairly early in recruiting (let's say the first 24 hours). Poaching is when School A is the only one recruiting a player until the signings cycle, then School B jumps in at the last second.

I have no problems with a conference mate battling me. But, it does suck to get poached right as a bunch of your potential replacements just got signed by weaker schools or sims.

there is nothing wrong with either.

He didn't say there's anything wrong with either. He said the 2nd option sucked.

You can tell all of that same information about anyone else too though, if you've been paying attention. 

Posted by killbatman on 4/4/2014 11:09:00 AM (view original):
You can tell all of that same information about anyone else too though, if you've been paying attention. 

I think it's much easier to tell a lot of that stuff about a conference opponent then out of conference though. You're constantly getting news on that team, you know if they cut someone immediately, what they did last cycle in terms of recruiting, after a couple recruiting classes you may even know what positions or types of players he favors. All of that information is a bit harder or impossible (I think) to ascertain once you notice an out of conference team going after your guy.

 

Posted by killbatman on 4/4/2014 10:37:00 AM (view original):
It was mostly a joke of course, but the serious part of that is referencing the idea some have mentioned that not "poaching" others is like a courtesy that's being extended. 

I think "impolite" is a good word for poaching the way mrg defined it.  It's not really wrong, certainly not against the rules, but it is does bother me the rare times it happens.  I won't actually target that school or anything, but I'll treat them like a sim team in terms of courtesy and willingness to battle them.

the operative word here is "mostly". drivers be crazy. i figure by far, the most likely cause of an early death is me flicking off some idiot driver who won't get out of the left lane, or is otherwise being retarded, and having them flip their lid and ram me, killing me instantly. its hard coming from new jersey where people flick each other off to create a little drag to save their brakes, living in a place where this is not common and people take it really seriously. i have cut down greatly since having kids, but sometimes i feel like its just your civic duty to let someone know they are screwing up the system ;)

i have been known to "poach"  if we are going to use that word.   almost allways i feel bad about doing it.  but, there are times when the more "normal" recruiting strategies just wont be good enough to get the level of players i think i need to succeed.  for instance,  when i only have one or two open schollies.    but can also happen when i have a bunch of openings and things shake out in a certain way.

i usually sitemail the guy after recruiting is done and apologize ... sort of.  im not really apologizing for doing it  (i dont think its wrong)  but that doesnt mean i dont feel bad for the guy.  heck weve all been there and theres no question it sucks.   and i will say that i would really try hard not to "poach" the same coach repeatedly... even if that might cause me to miss out on a player i want.  creating enemies is just not my thing.  exception are guys who repeatedly shotgun recruit and have way more considering them than open spots... they are asking for it.  

and also,  when a kid is inside 100 to 200 miles of me,   and considering a school that is recruiting from distance....  i kind of look at that as "all bets are off" too,  although i would usually try to get on the kid sooner rather than later so the other coach will at least know that hes got to go elsewhere.

i guess my feelin is if you are shotgunning or distance recruiting,  you are opening up an invitation to "poachers" and you reap what you sew.

agree with joey that you usually do have a more intimate knowledge of conference mates and thier strength and normal tactics, etc.  
Joe, for instance, has a nose ring and if you punch him just right... he bleeds like hell.

gil,  your still a kentucky guy,  right?   im growing to hate them for some reason.  i guess its the whole one and done thing.    but also just never really liked Cal a whole lot i guess.   but i gotta acknowledge theyve got alot of talent and props to him for figuring out how to get them to mature and gel at the right time.

Agree 100% with most of OD's thoughts.  The sitemail is a great idea that might help to mitigate the payback factor.  It would definitely work with me, at least once ;)

agree with joey that you usually do have a more intimate knowledge of conference mates and thier strength and normal tactics, etc. 

Still disagree with this last bit though.  It just strikes me as a non-statement.  Of course if you limit yourself to only paying attention to your conference, that will be who you know the most about.  There's no reason you have to limit yourself, though. 

When I'm actually dialed in with recruiting--which comes and goes because of real life, etc--I do my best to have that level of understanding about EVERY team in my recruiting area..and that includes some higher level teams whose targets might overlap with mine.

Sort of sidebar, here's what I would NOT recommend to mitigate the payback factor.  I think this was the last time I can remember being "poached" for a player, and it's been a while.  To be fair I was overextended and deserved it, but it was a D2 swooping in right before signings on my D3 team.  That definitely made it feel worse.

Immediately after the guy signed with the D2 school, their coach posted on my CC something to the effect of "I hope player A will work out. I'm not crazy about his Def, but didn't see much better."  That made it 10x worse for me.  Not only did you kinda **** me off, but now you're coming to tell me you don't even really like the player??  Probably should keep that to yourself.

We did sitemail and smooth things over btw.  No hard feelings at all if that coach is reading this.  Mainly I just felt like telling the story.

Posted by killbatman on 4/4/2014 1:56:00 PM (view original):
Agree 100% with most of OD's thoughts.  The sitemail is a great idea that might help to mitigate the payback factor.  It would definitely work with me, at least once ;)

agree with joey that you usually do have a more intimate knowledge of conference mates and thier strength and normal tactics, etc. 

Still disagree with this last bit though.  It just strikes me as a non-statement.  Of course if you limit yourself to only paying attention to your conference, that will be who you know the most about.  There's no reason you have to limit yourself, though. 

When I'm actually dialed in with recruiting--which comes and goes because of real life, etc--I do my best to have that level of understanding about EVERY team in my recruiting area..and that includes some higher level teams whose targets might overlap with mine.

I hear you.    It's just a hell of a lot harder to do out of conference.   I feel like I know many of my conference mates in CCAA (Tark) like the back of my hand.   I know what they are looking for, how they recruit and such.

At my NYU (KNIGHT) team, there are a handful of Northeast teams I know pretty well (d2 and d3) but like 75 other teams in a 200 mile radius.  Getting a feel for the 30 competent  coaches from Baltimore to Boston is a stretch.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 4/4/2014 2:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by killbatman on 4/4/2014 1:56:00 PM (view original):
Agree 100% with most of OD's thoughts.  The sitemail is a great idea that might help to mitigate the payback factor.  It would definitely work with me, at least once ;)

agree with joey that you usually do have a more intimate knowledge of conference mates and thier strength and normal tactics, etc. 

Still disagree with this last bit though.  It just strikes me as a non-statement.  Of course if you limit yourself to only paying attention to your conference, that will be who you know the most about.  There's no reason you have to limit yourself, though. 

When I'm actually dialed in with recruiting--which comes and goes because of real life, etc--I do my best to have that level of understanding about EVERY team in my recruiting area..and that includes some higher level teams whose targets might overlap with mine.

I hear you.    It's just a hell of a lot harder to do out of conference.   I feel like I know many of my conference mates in CCAA (Tark) like the back of my hand.   I know what they are looking for, how they recruit and such.

At my NYU (KNIGHT) team, there are a handful of Northeast teams I know pretty well (d2 and d3) but like 75 other teams in a 200 mile radius.  Getting a feel for the 30 competent  coaches from Baltimore to Boston is a stretch.

Do you mean it's a lot harder from a volume perspective?  I can't argue with that obviously, but if you mean inherently more difficult, I just don't agree.  Whichever schools/coaches you pay attention to will be the ones you know like the back of your hand.

Posted by tarvolon on 4/3/2014 4:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by paleriders on 4/3/2014 4:48:00 PM (view original):
Poaching aside. There is (almost) no reason to fight against conference mates ever. My opinion.  Sometimes its unavoidable.  Mostly its a huge waste of money that weakens the conference overall so you get one player likely marginally better than another player for 3-4 years.  Big whup. Meanwhile you weaken the conference overall and strengthen the other conferences.  (almost) No player is worth that.

I would say that at D2 and D3, it's rarely ever helpful to battle to the finish. If you go all the way to zeros, you're draining both your own and your conference mate's resources, for a player only one of you can get, when there's a good chance there's a similar player to find elsewhere if you spent an equivalent amount in scouting. 

But if you're in geographically tight conferences like the CVAC, it's almost impossible to never pursue players that conference mates are pursuing. It's just in everyone's best interests if the person who is going to lose the battle doesn't put everything they have into it in an attempt to win when they know they're not going to win. The only time (IMO) it really makes sense to do so is for a transcendent player in a case where it's unclear who has the strategic advantage. And those cases don't happen all that often. But having three conference mates show up on one player on the same cycle or within a couple cycles happens all the time, and is really unavoidable if you're recruiting to the best of your abilities (unless you have secrets I don't know)

Being a fellow CVAC coach, and to further what you are saying, 

It's true that there's rarely much of a reason to fight until $0 for a recruit inter-conference. The real reason being.....you should have a good sense early on whether you are more likely to win or lose a battle. 

The only time I've had a squabble with a conference-mate over inter-conference battles was this....The conference-mate was losing the battle to me and was angry at me for jumping into it one or two cycles later than him. However, it should have been obvious to the conference-mate that I had better prestige, more money, and a distance advantage, so he should have backed out.....but he still battled me all the way until he was bankrupt, and took 2 walkons that season. I didn't "poach" him....I just targeted that recruit, but wasn't able to log on to recruit until 10 PM or 1 AM the first day if I remember correctly.  

The reason why most experienced coaches have a "live and let live" attitude toward inter-conference battling is because 98% of the time they can tell early on whether they are going to win the battle. If it's against a conference mate that I'm used to battling (like bow2dacowz, muskies, brianxavier, isack24, bvb), I'll know that they are pretty smart about the game as well....and the one of us who will most likely be disadvantaged will back out of the battle pretty quick. 

So I could care less if conference-mates battle me. Your conference is stronger if everyone goes for the best players.  If there are battles, so be it. It would be annoying if I was poached by a conference mate, but it would be my fault not to have backup funds if that did happen.  I've probably both lost and won at least 50 inter-conference battles, and only in that one example did it cause a little drama....and even that eventually cleared up just fine. 

On a side note, people need to think outside the box when recruiting in a full conference. Either that, or accept the many battles they will face. In the CVAC, (where Longwood is my most successful school), I pay attention to geography, and rarely have to battle in-conference anymore (though it's occasionally unavoidable). We are the only Virginia school in the CVAC. Every other school in the CVAC is in North or South Carolina. Usually, I like letting the other 11 schools battle over the Carolinas, and I recruit west and north of Virginia (where there's less competition). I haven't even scouted North Carolina in 6 or 7 seasons....there are 4 or 5 other conference schools with A+ or A prestige to battle with, and it's usually not worth it.  

If there are no rules in the game against in-conference battling, then coaches should have at it.  In addition, I agree that it is collusion if a conference openly decides to not battle against one another before recruiting.. I hope folks aren't doing that.  

Yeah, you do great up there in Virginia. This year, I scouted a wide swathe of states from WV to FL. I went after the #1 big guy on my list, two Peach Belt schools fought me, I had to spend over 10 grand to win the battle (honestly not sure why there was a battle, because I had a HUGE cash advantage, but that's the way it went). #2 big guy on my list, you went after in the first cycle. I considered a battle, but decided to scout #3 big guy on my list (who was undecided) first. Found some high-highs, decided to go after him. The cycle before signing, another Peach Belt school battles me for #3 big guy. I had to use all the rest of my funds to fend him off. 

So I spend a combined 20k on the 1st and 3rd best big guys on my list. And you signed the 2nd best guy unopposed. Must be nice to be on the geographical edge of the conference. 

Posted by caesari on 4/4/2014 12:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by mrg1037 on 4/3/2014 10:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dacj501 on 4/3/2014 10:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrg1037 on 4/3/2014 9:24:00 PM (view original):
I think there's a big difference between battling and poaching. Battling is when two schools both get on a player fairly early in recruiting (let's say the first 24 hours). Poaching is when School A is the only one recruiting a player until the signings cycle, then School B jumps in at the last second.

I have no problems with a conference mate battling me. But, it does suck to get poached right as a bunch of your potential replacements just got signed by weaker schools or sims.

there is nothing wrong with either.

You're entitled to your opinion. Personally I won't poach a conference mate unless he's done it to me in the past, and in my 25 or so seasons there is only one guy who's done that (multiple times actually). I'm sure it becomes more common as you move up the levels.

I think by saying "nothing is wrong with either" he simply means that both are allowed. Poaching is always a sore subject with people, and some people utilize it, some don't, but just because you don't utilize a completely fair method of recruiting doesn't mean everyone has to play by those self imposed standards.

I hope I'm not putting words in dac's mouth, but this is my interpretation. 

Oh I agree, it's not against the rules at all. To me it's a breach of etiquette - as batman said, "impolite". Everyone is free to recruit how they see fit, but it might be tough in those seasons with 1-2 openings if a bunch of your conference mates are looking for a chance to get back at you.

That I can definitely agree with- it's certainly a strategy you can live and die by, especially when people have vendettas. But that can make recruiting that much more lively, which I enjoy. :P If someone poaches me, I don't necessarily go out of my way to get revenge, but I certainly will take the opportunity if it presents itself. 

Which, warped as it may be, is a blast.