I think one of the key questions when addressing this post is to understand what your goal is.  Are you looking to build the low level team?  Move up to a mid major quickly?  Or jump to a Big 6 program?

While in general most of the advice will stay the same, there would be some nuances that would change depending on the ultimate goal.

One thing that I haven't seen posted is the location of your school in relation to the power structure of the world. If you notice the Big 12 is rather weak, or there is a state that is empty (such as if both Colorado and Colorado State are empty), then it's possible to get much better recruits than you normally would if you were to coach say Air Force simply because less human coaches are searching for players to sign in that area. Obviously you won't be able to sign 4/5*, but those 30th-60th positionally ranked players with great FSS may become a little easier to grab. Try to find a geographical weakness in your world and exploit it. 

What tkimble said about recruiting "imperfect" players is absolutely spot on. It's much better to a high ath/def guy and sacrifice elsewhere than to take a guy who is merely "well-rounded". If he was really well-rounded, you, in all likelihood, wouldn't have been able to sign him. One exception to this is a lower ranked SF with good FSS and a solid work ethic. lots of BCS coaches overlook anyone who starts under 70 in athleticism, for good reason. They won't be able to play for quite some time in their conferences without being a serious liability. But for you, in a midmajor conference, these guys merely are average for their first few years until they grow, and then they become dominant. 

Scheduling is another huge part of being a midmajor. Right after recruiting starts, go through all the midmajor conferences by "Team Ratings" and filter by Jr's. The sims with the most juniors will be the teams that have the nice RPI's the next year. They almost ALWAYS beat up on the other sims with such an IQ advantage. I've way too often seen coaches schedule a midmajor with 20+ wins during that season only to see that team drop a 200+ rpi the next season because they just lost 8 seniors. It can be tedious, but it's worth it to get that free win on the road vs a relatively bad team that somehow drops a sub 60 RPI

Posted by cburton23 on 1/8/2013 1:43:00 PM (view original):
I think one of the key questions when addressing this post is to understand what your goal is.  Are you looking to build the low level team?  Move up to a mid major quickly?  Or jump to a Big 6 program?

While in general most of the advice will stay the same, there would be some nuances that would change depending on the ultimate goal.

For me personally it would to build this team and jump to a Big 6 program down the road.  I am a D1 rookie and figured it would take 6+ seasons of experience to figure out how to battle/recruit on this level.  

D1 is about building prestige in increments by having a season every 2-3 seasons where you do significantly better than where you should be. All you need is one season where you win 28-30 games, go to the S16 to boost your prestige from D/D+ to C/C+, while it would take you multiple sub .500 seasons to drop back down to D. For this reason, I'm a big fan of filling all the scholarships when you have a big class (playing the superclass structure) and then go to the 2nd/S16 in your superclasses JR/SR year, get a boost in prestige, and reload. 

"All you need is one season where you win 28-30 games, go to the S16 to boost your prestige"

Yeah, that's easy to do.....

"All you need is one season where you win 28-30 games, go to the S16 to boost your prestige"

Yeah, that's easy to do.....

Extremely easy when you are in low end D1 and your conf is all sims. 

And that is the point of the superclass, to put you so far above the competition in your conf that your chance of winning each game against a simai is 99%. 

For a low end DI school that would mean going not loosing a game until the NT.  Don't pretend that's easy, even in an all SIM conference

Posted by cburton23 on 1/9/2013 11:46:00 AM (view original):
For a low end DI school that would mean going not loosing a game until the NT.  Don't pretend that's easy, even in an all SIM conference

It happens with quite a few teams every season. If you schedule correctly and have a senior loaded team, it's not hard at all. Your path to the NT is winning the CT; no real point in scheduling a hard nonconf and lose a bunch of games. I'm too lazy to list a bunch of teams in D1 teams in D baseline conf, but if you just look around, there alot of 0 loss, 1 loss, and 2 loss teams, where the 1/2 loss teams lost to good/great teams in nonconf. 

Edit: And 28 wins = 1 loss before the NT. 

My UNI team a few seasons back went 27-3 and lost in the first round of the NT.  28-30 is damn difficult

Knight D1 by win total:

Rank	School	Prestige	Coach	Conference	Record	Strength of Schedule	SOS Rank	RPI
44.	UNC, Asheville	C	jaycee55	Big South	23-1	.4699	206	.5963
72.	Florida A&M	C	gymshoe6640	MEAC	22-1	.4303	288	.5661
79.	Alabama A&M	C	bobdog1	Big South	22-1	.4209	304	.5591
19.	Mississippi	A	kevin_w64	SEC	22-1	.5355	89	.6389
3.	Providence	A+	ARomano	Big East	22-2	.5972	17	.6783
38.	W. Illinois	B	tianyi7886	SL	22-2	.5042	138	.6080

Rupp D1:

Rank	School	Prestige	Coach	Conference	Record	Strength of Schedule	SOS Rank	RPI
2.	UCLA	A+	oldman_sons	PAC 10	23-0	.5904	25	.6926
72.	Norfolk St.	C+	night_train	MEAC	23-0	.4220	314	.5668
1.	Florida	A+	johnsensing	SEC	22-0	.6081	5	.7059
20.	Dartmouth	B+	dnicholas	Ivy	22-1	.5326	84	.6427
10.	Tennessee	A+	jpmills3	SEC	22-2	.5735	35	.6671
14.	Indiana	B-	survivor45	Big 10	22-2	.5580	57	.6564
7.	Texas	A+	jdno2	Big 12	22-2	.5959	15	.6779
6.	Marshall	A	girt25	CUSA	21-1	.5981	10	.6831
18.	St. Johns	A+	jake_marley	Big East	21-1	.5457	67	.6434
4.	Maryland	A+	mamxet	ACC	21-2	.5969	14	.6852
11.	Connecticut	A+	slyman9	Big East	21-3	.5914	23	.6653
25.	Georgia Southern	B	knappj	Southern	20-2	.5301	87	.6262
77.	American U.	B-	usvtheman	Patriot	20-2	.4462	284	.5621
15.	Mississippi St.	A+	bludluciano	SEC	20-2	.5523	62	.6501

Rank	School	Prestige	Coach	Conference	Record	Strength of Schedule	SOS Rank	RPI
18.	St. Johns	A	gchuck	Big East	29-1	.5368	93	.6447
13.	BYU	B+		MWC	29-2	.5502	72	.6527
17.	Santa Clara	C	jesseerdmann	WCC	28-3	.5537	67	.6465
9.	Duke	A+	utahjazz88	ACC	28-3	.5731	46	.6564
6.	Louisiana St.	A+	namshub	SEC	28-3	.5795	36	.6641

There are 3 low end D1 teams in Knight on pace for 28+ wins, 3 in Rupp (not counting Dartmouth, 1 in Naismith. Phelan just rolled over but 2 D baseline teams hit 28 wins, 1 hit 27, with a handful at the 25 win mark. I have a strong suspicion those 25 win teams all lost multiple games in nonconf to human opponents. 

Posted by cburton23 on 1/9/2013 12:06:00 PM (view original):
My UNI team a few seasons back went 27-3 and lost in the first round of the NT.  28-30 is damn difficult

And looking at you 27 win UNI season, you were undefeated in conf, so 2 of those losses were from nonconf. As I said in my earlier post, I can't help it if you don't schedule for wins to boost your win total, when you know the CT is a lock. # of wins play a pretty significant role in prestige. 

So because 2 teams in a world can do it, that makes it easy?  That is just stupid tianyi.  Sure it can be done.  I was one bounce of the ball from doing it.  And that is exactly why it isn't "easy."  One bad night here, one scheduling misstep there and you are at 25 wins.  Not to mention most of the coaches on that list are already top tier coaches with team prestige above a C already.  So to say you should win 28-30 games is fine, but don't say its easy, especially for a guy who came on asking for our help as a coach new to low level DI.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 1/9/2013 12:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cburton23 on 1/9/2013 12:06:00 PM (view original):
My UNI team a few seasons back went 27-3 and lost in the first round of the NT.  28-30 is damn difficult

And looking at you 27 win UNI season, you were undefeated in conf, so 2 of those losses were from nonconf. As I said in my earlier post, I can't help it if you don't schedule for wins to boost your win total, when you know the CT is a lock. # of wins play a pretty significant role in prestige. 

The CT is never a lock.  There are other good coaches in the conference and you never know what may happen night to night.  Teams stub their toe from time to time.

Posted by cburton23 on 1/9/2013 12:21:00 PM (view original):
So because 2 teams in a world can do it, that makes it easy?  That is just stupid tianyi.  Sure it can be done.  I was one bounce of the ball from doing it.  And that is exactly why it isn't "easy."  One bad night here, one scheduling misstep there and you are at 25 wins.  Not to mention most of the coaches on that list are already top tier coaches with team prestige above a C already.  So to say you should win 28-30 games is fine, but don't say its easy, especially for a guy who came on asking for our help as a coach new to low level DI.

There are 3 in Knight, 3 in Rupp, 1 in Naismith, and 2 that did it last season in Phelan, with a bunch more if the teams at the 25-27 range scheduled properly. That's alot of teams doing it. If you want to argue semantics about the word "easy," then whatever. 

I'm just providing coaches at low end D1 an easy way to boost prestige. If you are in an empty conf, load up on a super class, schedule nonconf soft, and watch those 28-30 win seasons roll in by the 3rd/4th year.

The ability of superclasses to win out in conf against easy competition is something alot of top coaches know but don't quite talk about openly. Think about why the same 10 A+ teams all schedule a specific simai, where the simai goes 0-10 in nonconf but then finishes the season around 16-12 or 15-13.