A comprehensive take on the recruiting update Topic

There are so many things going on here that it's hard to sort out what it does, what it doesn't do, and what the potential problems are. This is an attempt on my part to sort out my thoughts, and hopefully organize some things in such a way that it helps y'all sort out some thoughts as well. I can't really organize by goals (because not every chance directly addresses a goal) or by major changes (because some are grouped together in addressing one thing), but I'll try to be as organized as possible. 

I. Revamping scouting. 
Goal: making scouting more realistic and fun. 
Method: Take away every coach's ability to see the skill set of every player in the country without having to scout at all. Take away ability to get every national's potential via FSS. Require camps/discovery/FSS in order to see skill sets and individual scouting in order to see potential. Make scouting trips more useful (no player will require more than three scouting trips to get full potential). 
Major Consequences: Recruiting will require individual scouting, which will make it more difficult to recruit from long-distances at the lower levels where scouting budgets are low. This is realistic, so I don't have a ton of problem with it. Additionally, the choice of where to scout will be made with much less information about which kinds of players will be there. Again, this is realistic, and I like it. 
Major concerns: Getting the money right is the biggest thing here. You want budgets to be low enough that D3 schools can't effectively scout everybody who looks promising in all corners of the country, but high enough that teams aren't just stuck in their backyard. Also, going with a letter grade that isn't relativized to division might be pretty useless. An A through F scale that can give adequate info on a D3 player gives basically nothing on a D1 player. 
Verdict: I think this is a positive change. The biggest concern is getting the money to balance right, which is pretty small as big concerns go. The letter scale may also need some work. It does make things more realistic and I think adds another wrinkle to the game, but not one that will be too arduous. Thumbs up. 

II. Balancing DI by
A. Nationalizing recruiting.
 
Goal: Encourage high prestige D1 teams to fight each other even when they're more than 360 miles apart. Take away the unrealistic advantages for high-prestige schools who are geographically isolated from their major competition. 
Method: Take away distance-related costs for recruiting actions. Make all top 100 recruits visible to everyone. 
Major Consequences: Long-distance battles will be winnable, but they will still require advantage in available scholarships. 
Major concerns: This may make the advantage of having many open spots even more significant than it is now, as the teams with the most resources will not be hampered by distance. 
Verdict: I think this will really help encourage battles outside of geographic area in the higher levels where scouting is less important (which is exactly where it's designed to hit hardest, so good work there). I am worried that removal of distance related costs will make things more auctiony than they were before, but we'll see. Cautiously optimistic. 

B. Upping the "hidden gem" factor. 
Goal: Make mid-majors more competitive by allowing them to find more quality players that slip through the high-D1 cracks. 
Method: While many think this should be accomplished by recruit generation changes, seble thinks the new scouting, where not all players are visible, will make it harder for high prestige schools to find the high potential, low starting rating guys who exist now, putting more of them in mid-major (or low BCS) hands. 
Major concerns: I am skeptical of this having any real consequence, because scouting and recruiting budgets have been decoupled, and high D1 schools still have hefty scouting budgets. Because they don't have to scout much with the elite of the elite (because they're known to be elite), they will be able to pour their whole scouting budget into finding hidden gems and should be able to find them just as consistently as mid-majors can (and then win battles with their higher prestige). 
Verdict: I really don't think this one will do anything near what seble thinks it will. I don't think this problem gets solved without changing recruit generation. Thumbs down. Not going to work. 

C. Taking away superconference money. 
Goal: Make non-BCS schools more competitive by taking away BCS conference advantages. 
Method: Take away postseason cash. 
Major consequences: This will indeed take away a major advantage of being in a BCS conference. This will also hit hard for the D3 conferences that are geographically clumped together, because they relied on that extra money to be able to scout and recruit players outside their geographic footprint. 
Major concerns: This will disincentivize D3 coaches from joining geographically tight conferences with other human coaches. It also seems to overcorrect at D1. Conference prestige is a factor in D1 recruiting, and this takes it away entirely (or almost entirely). 
Verdict: The funny thing about this change is that the decoupling of scouting and recruiting budgets should already accomplish the goal without taking away bonus money. Because budgets are decoupled, teams can only use bonus money for more scouting, not to overwhelm their opposition in recruiting effort. This accomplishes the goal without hitting the D3 conferences hard and without overcorrecting at D1. Thumbs down, unnecessary and unwanted. 

III. Making recruiting less of an auction system
Goal: Add texture to recruiting, making it less of a matter of who has more resources to devote. 
Method: Replace recruiting budgets with a set number of HVs/CVs and low-level actions. Allow only one CV per recruit. Make recruit preferences mean more. 
Major consequences: As far as I can tell, replacing the recruiting cash with an HV/CV budget doesn't actually accomplish anything. It just renames the problem. It does severely cut down the number of CVs per recruit, but since HVs are still unlimited, I'm not really sure what that does. Preferences are the key here.
Major concerns: With HVs unlimited, it seems like richer schools (i.e. schools with more openings) can still just overwhelm schools with less openings. Additionally, with HVs now allowed at any distance, that gives schools with more openings even MORE reach (although said reach will be limited at the lower levels by scouting limitations). 
Verdict: I think this will depend on how important preferences have become. If a preference for being close to home can still be overwhelmed by a long-distance school with twice as many HVs to offer, this seems like it doesn't solve much and possibly just makes the problem worse. I like the idea in theory, but I am skeptical of how it works in practice. 

IV. Making recruiting year-round. 
Goal: Cut down some in-season boredom by making recruiting year-round. 
Method: Move scouting to in-season. Move at least some of recruiting in-season. 
Major consequences: New coaches don't have as much control over their first roster, schools with lots of EEs won't get most of their resources until the 2nd recruiting period. This does add texture to recruiting, as coaches will have to decide whether to spend more cash to press their recruits for an early decision. 
Major concerns: If too many recruits sign in the first signing period, there will be slim pickins left for coaches with EEs or who have changed jobs. It is unrealistic for coaches who have NBA-quality underclassmen to not be out there recruiting early and often. 
Verdict: Moving scouting in season is definitely a plus. Regarding two signing periods, I think this idea could be a huge positive (not a shock since I proposed it), but it really depends on how easy it is to get recruits to sign in the early period. If it is too hard, the early period is pointless. If it is too easy, it fails to add texture to recruiting and handcuffs new coaches and coaches with EEs because there aren't enough players left. Done right, it adds a new layer of strategy and is only a mild negative for coaches with EEs (since the big fish will still be out there in the second period). In my opinion, recruits signing early should be a function of effort and prestige of the school vs their own perceived ability, and recruits should not sign early without either an unusually high amount of effort or a recruit really thinking this school is the best they can do. We'll see how it works in practice, but I am cautiously optimistic, while recognizing potential pitfalls. 

V. Taking away pulldowns
Goal: Make things more realistic. A recruit doesn't suddenly start loving a school he thought was beneath him because they scout him a bunch. 
Method: This is still a little bit unclear, but recruits will talk to schools based on how they perceive that school's prestige vs their own ability, and if time goes by without them getting a lot of attention, they may start talking to lower schools.
Major consequences: Dropdowns still exist, pulldowns are gone. 
Major concerns: This does take away an interesting and high-risk strategic option. 
Verdict: This might make things more realistic, but very modestly so, and it does so at the cost of recruiting texture. Dropdowns are effectively still there, and the lack of texture here might be made up for with more texture in scouting and with the two signing periods, but on its own, I'd say this change is a thumbs down. 

So I just wrote a lot of things. I hope it helps with getting a grasp on such a huge update. Let me know if I missed anything important. 
9/18/2015 2:43 PM (edited)
One thing I didn't talk about here is doing it all in one go. If they are rebuilding recruiting from the ground up, it'll be hard to keep the size of the update manageable. That said, here's one way to help that (IMO): 

First update introduces scouting and recruiting mechanics changes, including decoupled budgets, including preferences, including whatever is going on with dropdowns and pulldowns, and moves scouting in season, but leaves recruiting itself where it is. 

Later update deals with the shift of moving recruiting in-season and the host of additional factors that go with that (primarily dealing with EEs/new coaches and dealing with logic for whether or not players want to sign early). 

If you're rewriting things from the ground up, it's hard to go in smaller updates than that, but I do think that is a good way to manage the size somewhat. It's necessarily a big update, but I think this would help. 

As far as conference money, if they're rewriting recruiting and scouting mechanics from the ground up, that's going to get rewritten anyways. Obviously, as you can tell from the OP, I prefer rewriting it in such a way that conference money still exists but goes in the scouting budget and not the recruiting budget. 
9/18/2015 4:16 PM
tarvalon, i think this is pretty good. i agree with much of it.

on the distance recruiting, i have one other major concern. we almost need like, 1 thread, per topic here, so we can get into this crap deep. anyway... the concern is the time spent looking for players. this is similar to what people mentioned with teh scouting system, but different. in the olden days, before potential, you could recruit nationally. distance advantages were there - but the scouting fees were not. distance alone was not enough to stop top coaches from having to scour nationally. with potentially, my d2 time to prepare for the start of recruiting, went down from something like 10 hours of pre-work, to 1. those 10 hours were brutal. reducing that was a MAJOR success of potential.

now, we are talking about a flip case almost. the scouting fees will be there, and apparently somehow tailored locally - but not exclusively. maybe you can effectively scout in a big way at distance, that isn't exactly clear. but, the distance advantage, which is a big part (in tandem with FSS) in reducing the scope of who d2/d3 schools, and low-mid d1 schools at well, have to consider (did i ever mention its not unusual for me to spent 30K, yes thats 30, scouting with a low d1 school? mostly evals). having to consider the whole nation is such a brutal grind, i really don't want to go back to that! im afraid we might. it has to be considered. i thought the idea was to remove distance advantage for TOP players, to increase competition between top schools for said players. not to do distance for everyone.

one other reason that is scary as hell - which you do mention - but which i want to talk about a little too. today, distance actually protects the small boys. it means the guy with the a+ and the biggest budget doesnt have first pick over everyone, it means that in d2, a school with 6 openings, regardless of prestige, can't just totally trounce all the 4 and under opening schools. this is valuable. distance advantage has a place - i dont think it should be an all or nothing deal. this is one of my biggest concerns in the core of the scouting/recruiting changes proposed (outside of the stuff im trying to get out of scope altogether). i don't honestly know what to predict, i think i have pretty good predictive powers here... but the scouting system is such an unknown, its hard to say with confidence. but i would definitely wager schools with smaller wallets are going to be suffering for distance to some degree. now, that 1 CV per player thing, that definitely plays in to, to help protect. maybe the answer is the close / far from home preference. make close to home like a sliding scale from 30% for really close down to 10% for pretty close, and actually have like half of all players have that preference. or make it not a binary - close to home preference, yes or no - but maybe make it like slight, moderate, and large. i could definitely see that compensating in the ways we want, to protect locals in some respect. there really has to be some protection, i believe.

one other topic that is completely missed and really missed by just about everyone, but i think its massively important - 
seble is proposing removing the existing tradeoff, the tradeoff that did more for recruiting strategy than anything in my tenure, the tradeoff between spending money to find players, versus spending money to battle for them. because scounting is so rudimentary and because coaches in general are slow to adapt, i know its not a HUGE amount of coaches who are spending like 1-2 more scholarships of moeny scouting than other coaches. but there are some of us, with some of our teams. and its raelly great, having that key strategic tradeoff. you awnt to get away from auction style? give a key tradeoff on how to spend your money, thats a great way. i can't see why we'd take this away, except to make it easier for seble to balance.

now, the biggest limitation in that tradeoff today is, theres only so much you can spend, and the system is rudimentary so not a lot of coaches really look at that tradeoff. i have literally spent about 40k in one particular season scouting, i probably scouted 20 internationals, in d1... but very few folks are doing that. seble's scouting enhancements would be GREAT for helping to improve the meaningfullness of this great strategic recruiting money tradeoff. but hes totally split the budget. im 100% against that, thats a major step back. i udnerstand its hard to balance - so i think the easiest way to do it, is have two budgets - but let coaches, at any time, as often as they want - convert money from scouting budget to recruiting (not the reverse) - but at a penalty. maybe even an 80% penalty, only getting 20 dollars on the 100. this has real life precedent - coaches have restrictions on things they can do, effort and money they can expend, but they find ways around it - often getting inefficient use of resources to do so - but its still an edge for them. if you have 30k for scouting, some coaches might only use 5k, and convert 5k to recruiting, while some might use all 30k - in my version. thats awesome, assuming 5k is meaningful. the rule of thumb ill propose is that the difference between a heavy scouter and a light scouter should be allowed to be AT LEAST 1 full scholarship of funds. maybe up to 1.5 scholarships. 2 scholarships is pushing it. i think t his tradeoff should go on the list, its a huge change hes making, and it could be flipped around - from really taking away from recruiting strategy - to really adding to it.
9/18/2015 5:26 PM
good call on the tradeoff--that is an important one that I missed. 

I share all of your concerns about distance, as I alluded to in the OP. I believe that the design is to limit the territory that it is feasible to recruit by limiting scouting budget (since you can no longer see a player to recruit them if you haven't scouted them first). The question is whether the scouting budget limitation will serve to effectively protect the smaller school from the guy with 6 openings just trouncing them in all corners of the country. And I think that depends on exactly how much you can do with the scouting budget. I really don't think you'll be able to scout the whole country, at least not at the lower levels. But getting the scouting budget in the sweet spot is going to be one of the most important factors in keeping this balanced (as well as making preferences mean something). 
9/18/2015 5:34 PM
ohhhh, right. you got me again. cant even see a guy until you scouted them first... crazy... i still dont know what that means for battle planning. that might be kind of unacceptable, to not even be able to see their name and who they are considering, i dont know, cant decide really how i feel about that. 

i suppose you will be able to attend any regional camp you wish though?

i totally agree, getting the scouting budget right is absolutely critical. i do think that ties into the tradeoff question too. in my post, i hadn't been thinking that recruiting money is GONE, just totally gone. or maybe its not 100% gone but hell it feels like it. if you get X hvs and Y cvs and stuff, and attention points, whats left? will promises and scholarships be free now? still, generally seems like recruiting money is gone. the tradeoff can still exist though. maybe you can trade for attention points or hvs or whatever. i think it would have to be one of those - not CVs - because the fundamental tradeoff is, battling harder for the good players you can find, versus looking harder to find good guys you can get without such a big battle. you can't 2 CV 1 player, so more CVs for your money wouldn't necessarily enhance your battle abilities. 
9/18/2015 5:44 PM
ON the other hand, if you are completely getting ridof the old system because its glitchy, then wouldn't making a new composite half one and half the other first be just as prone to bugginess?


9/18/2015 5:52 PM
Posted by gillispie1 on 9/18/2015 5:44:00 PM (view original):
ohhhh, right. you got me again. cant even see a guy until you scouted them first... crazy... i still dont know what that means for battle planning. that might be kind of unacceptable, to not even be able to see their name and who they are considering, i dont know, cant decide really how i feel about that. 

i suppose you will be able to attend any regional camp you wish though?

i totally agree, getting the scouting budget right is absolutely critical. i do think that ties into the tradeoff question too. in my post, i hadn't been thinking that recruiting money is GONE, just totally gone. or maybe its not 100% gone but hell it feels like it. if you get X hvs and Y cvs and stuff, and attention points, whats left? will promises and scholarships be free now? still, generally seems like recruiting money is gone. the tradeoff can still exist though. maybe you can trade for attention points or hvs or whatever. i think it would have to be one of those - not CVs - because the fundamental tradeoff is, battling harder for the good players you can find, versus looking harder to find good guys you can get without such a big battle. you can't 2 CV 1 player, so more CVs for your money wouldn't necessarily enhance your battle abilities. 
yeah, you can attend any regional camp you wish, but that only gets you player ratings (or player letter grades, which I think will have to be specified by division or ditched in favor of ratings, or at least rating ranges). you can also do the same thing with FSS, but FSS won't give potential. in order to scout the player's potential, you actually have to send scouting trips. Which is not prohibitively expensive to do on a few players, but you're not going to be able to scout 10 players across the country if you're in D3, which will limit the degree to which people with 6 openings can boss the whole country in D3. In D1, with a much bigger scouting budget, it does nationalize things (which is good), but it might overnationalize things and get back into the tyranny of the teams with the most openings. I think preferences are going to have to have some fair weight to counterbalance that a bit
9/18/2015 6:17 PM
just bumping this on the grounds that I wrote it Friday afternoon and want the people who had already checked out for the weekend to have a chance to see. Maybe that's being a bit arrogant, assuming it's worth seeing. If so, my apologies. 
9/21/2015 1:56 PM
I think you make a bunch of great points tarvolon--especially about the advantages of having 6 openings compared to a team that has only 1 or 2 openings. I am not sure how they could do it, but a coach should be able to get a good recruit at whatever level he is at with 1 or 2 open scholarships. As it is now with 1 or 2 openings I just look for a lower rated recruit with lots of potential and pray that no school with lots of openings swoops down on him and takes him. Going after a really good recruit with just 1 or 2 openings is suicidal.
9/22/2015 12:26 AM
Much of the proposed changes are still fuzzy to me.  I've never played D1, which is a major factor for my confusion.  

So, speaking as a D2 and D3 coach, I don't like the elimination of pulldowns.  I have teams in small states with very few available  recruits. If I have to wait for regional  recruits to dropdown, most of the good ones will be taken before I can recruit them.  That's a disadvantage to coaches in small states. 
9/22/2015 4:47 AM
Posted by alblack56 on 9/22/2015 4:48:00 AM (view original):
Much of the proposed changes are still fuzzy to me.  I've never played D1, which is a major factor for my confusion.  

So, speaking as a D2 and D3 coach, I don't like the elimination of pulldowns.  I have teams in small states with very few available  recruits. If I have to wait for regional  recruits to dropdown, most of the good ones will be taken before I can recruit them.  That's a disadvantage to coaches in small states. 
i honestly don't think roughly any of it is d1 specific. you are a steady and respected voice in the community, would definitely be great if you caught up and passed on some feedback. i admit, the catching up is quite a burden. i spent like 3-4 hours reading up and considering before i felt comfortable posting.... its really quite large.

anyway, whats the d1 stuff you are referring to?
9/22/2015 10:47 AM
A comprehensive take on the recruiting update Topic

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