With nobody watching over things, How much collusion do you think is back in play? I believe as of lately it has become more prevalent. 
 I don't have a smoking gun but just reacting to some noticeable changes. Before you could send in a ticket and they would check it out but I don't believe that would help now. Thoughts?

i agree with what u said.

What specifically is happening?

Personally, I haven't seen any. However, I haven't been looking closely either.

It's pathetic if there are coaches out there using it as an advantage. I'd rather lose the right way than win the wrong way.

Hope you're wrong fastec, but you might be on to something. If you are right, then it's probably going to go unpunished as I doubt anyone is truly manning this game at present.

Human nature = Of course it is happening. To what extent? Who knows. That is one of the things slowing me down from trying to move up to Div 1 . Any post I read makes it sound ultra competitive.

I have three schools at the D1A level and haven't really noticed it.

FWIW, someone just posted something about a ticket response in another thread...so someone is still monitoring tickets if you send in a complaint.

I haven't really seemed to notice it either but I'm sure it still happens a bit

I think they still actually look into those tickets, just not the game engine ones.

I just finished my 4th recruiting cycle since coming back after a 3 (real time) year absence and I don't notice it.  Maybe my teams just aren't good enough yet to get recruits that will have me on colluders radar.

Sure would be interested in some (even non specific to protect the names of the guilty) examples.

colluding has to be defined first. For example, I use 2 contact schools that had multiple players at a single position and asked which one was their backup. It was the general consensus of the board that was collusion so I quit doing it about 2 years ago. However, other people could be doing other things that one person thinks is collusion in another does not think is cool. I think that's of collusion is occurring where people choose not to recruit against teams in the same conference. However, that it's much different than actively colluding where you communicate and target recruits the operative method. Therefore, I think that passive collusion has always been and still is a problem. However, I think I took collusion is minimal. But I do believe there are some owners that know each other offline regularly. I just don't know who they are and could not prove it if I did.

 It's hard to see how teams could collude in this game. Especially in recruiting. Maybe some teams close together geographically could discuss which recruits to go after near them, but it's hard to call that collusion since they couldn't keep other teams from getting involved on those recruits. 

Posted by johnnyf on 1/28/2015 7:54:00 PM (view original):
 It's hard to see how teams could collude in this game. Especially in recruiting. Maybe some teams close together geographically could discuss which recruits to go after near them, but it's hard to call that collusion since they couldn't keep other teams from getting involved on those recruits. 

Minimizing competition always helps those colluding rather than competing. This is a principle called "Oligopoly" and is usually illegal in the real world for good reason. This would give particularly powerful if the team is already an elite. Imagine if Notre Dame and Michigan decided to collude so they could focus their competition on Nebraska and Ohio State.  This happened in one world and the teams were very dominant until they were caught.

Posted by ermackey on 1/28/2015 9:35:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnnyf on 1/28/2015 7:54:00 PM (view original):
 It's hard to see how teams could collude in this game. Especially in recruiting. Maybe some teams close together geographically could discuss which recruits to go after near them, but it's hard to call that collusion since they couldn't keep other teams from getting involved on those recruits. 

Minimizing competition always helps those colluding rather than competing. This is a principle called "Oligopoly" and is usually illegal in the real world for good reason. This would give particularly powerful if the team is already an elite. Imagine if Notre Dame and Michigan decided to collude so they could focus their competition on Nebraska and Ohio State.  This happened in one world and the teams were very dominant until they were caught.

There's no incentive to do so for Notre Dame and Michigan to do that in your hypothetical. You can never truly minimize competition in recruiting in its current set up. Even if ND and UM were forcing Nebraska and OSU into spending more and more cash on recruits, they could only do that by spending their cash themselves and they can't stop anyone else from jumping in on those recruits. I would guess that ND/UM were great programs for reasons other than their collusion. 

i dont doubt that the coaches at UM and ND were great...they are elites after all.  and i have no idea who they were and wasnt involved at all.  But to fail to see how those coaches agreeing not to battle one another is a huge advantage to both of them is short sighted.  up until recently, i was at Minnesota in Dobie, and I recruited heavily in the southern WI and IL areas, so I kept a fairly close eye on what was going on with ND throughout recruiting.  in my 12 seasons at MN, there was not a single time when ND and MIchigan didnt show up on multiple recruits together after the first cycle.  even if they decide to stop battling at that point, that is cash they have spent that they cannot divert to battles with other schools.  and since their 180 mile radius overlaps so much (the schools are 137 miles apart), they are likely spending more than just the initial push.  and you are correct, you cannot keep other schools from jumping on those recruits that were "allocated", not many people other than Ohio State and maybe Penn State are going to jump into a battle when a local recruit is considering only ND or only Michigan because it is likely a losing proposition...and then ND or Mich is better set up to win that recruit because they havent put any money into recruits they will lose to the other local school.  those schools were great for other reasons, but they were able to be more dominant because they reduced their competition for recruits and gained an advantage against schools they were not colluding with.

Posted by johnnyf on 1/28/2015 7:54:00 PM (view original):
 It's hard to see how teams could collude in this game. Especially in recruiting. Maybe some teams close together geographically could discuss which recruits to go after near them, but it's hard to call that collusion since they couldn't keep other teams from getting involved on those recruits. 

Some "collusion" would reflect the real world.    Schools in the same conference often have gentleman's agreements not to flip each others verbal commits and maybe more (eg Bert Bielema's B1G).    Coaches have close networks, and they're more likely to battle for a rival's recruit than for a friend's.   

Question:    If you and another coach are competing for two WRs, is it cricket to just agree to split them?  

Also,  what about  deferring to the nearer school, rather than fight it out?   I often do that.  If the other coach is doing it too, is that unfair?   If we both agree to that?