So I've been around for a while, but have never been as dedicated as some the titans of the game. I recognize this, but I am still amazed sometimes at how little I still understand about this game. I suppose I need to pay more attention. Anyway...

I just saw a post mentioning there are more ways to get considered besides just SVs. Would any of the more educated coaches care to comment about this or is this one of those things that no one will talk about because they don't want to give up their edge?

Scott

PS - I did a fair amount of searching before posting this and only found one reference to it. If anyone knows of more, feel free to point me in the right direction. Thanks.

If you are only using SV's to get recruits to consider you, then you are really only scratching the surface of what you can do while recruiting.  In most cases, Campus Visits (CV) and Home Visits (HV) are the most cost efficient options when recruiting.  If a player is <370 miles from you, HV's are the best mass recruiting option.  Past 360 miles CV's become the better option.  At extreme distances (internationals) sending out mass recruit calls and material packets become the best, but be careful because too many will **** off the recruit.  There is some debate where this cutoff is, but I don't send more than 80 of each.  Here is a great thread on this rarely discussed strategy.

It is also possible to get a recruit to consider you for the $110 special, which is a promised start + scholarship.

Since I've gotten to D1, I have very rarely used SV's.  In lower levels they are the best option when trying to pull down a player, and of course they still have their use when determining high/high potentials.

Man, I can't believe I have recruited even remotely decently without knowing this. I thought it was extremely rare that a recruit would accept your HVs or CVs without already considering you. So rare as to make it really inefficient to try this strategy. I use them extensively AFTER I get a recruit to consider me, but never before. Thank you for pulling my head out of my...

EDIT: Clouseb, after reading your response and the other thread, I guess I am still not real clear on the other ways to get a recruit to consider you. So I get that letters and phone calls give you credit, however I never thought it would be more effective than SVs to get a recruit to consider you, except for internationals. OK, let me reset for just and second and put this in terms of what I have perceived to be my knowledge gap...

I have noticed that at mid-prestige schools (C or so prestige) that when I start looking at "you're my backup option" recruits nationally, occasionally I see other mid-prestige schools showing up on guys like that well before I think it would be cost-effective to get the guy to consider me using SVs. So over the last few months, I have realized that there must be more to getting guys to consider you than I thought or these guys are dumping huge amounts of cash into just getting these guys to consider them. Here were my postulations about what was going on...

1) Calls / letters were worth far more than I realized. (I knew about the cap- so I thought it was not possible to get a "you're my backup option" guy to consider you with JUST calls and/or letters).

2) HVs and/or CVs don't get rejected as often as I thought *OR* you get some recruiting credit for HVs and CVs that get rejected.

3) I suppose I also wrongly thought that Promised Starts would also be rejected the vast majority of the time unless a recruit is considering you.

I guess my problem is that because I have spent a lot of time at mid-major schools, I never felt like I could commit a significant amount of money to experimenting without really endangering my recruiting efforts.

Posted by noleaniml on 9/8/2014 8:31:00 PM (view original):
Man, I can't believe I have recruited even remotely decently without knowing this. I thought it was extremely rare that a recruit would accept your HVs or CVs without already considering you. So rare as to make it really inefficient to try this strategy. I use them extensively AFTER I get a recruit to consider me, but never before. Thank you for pulling my head out of my...

Its not uncommon at all for a recruit to reject your HV's right off the bat when hes not considering you yet.  When he does reject your actions, its an "all or nothing" deal, meaning if you send 10 HV's he will either accept all of them or none of them.  To make up for this, I send my initial HV's in batches of 5.  This way if he does reject a batch or two, he will likely still end up accepting enough to get him considering me. 

For example, if you send two batches of 10 HV's right off the bat and he rejects both, its a wasted cycle.  If you send four batches of 5 HV's, the recruit will almost assuredly accept at least 5-10 HV's.

Unless you're intentionally obfuscating numbers, I don't see how that evens out?  Here's some examples:

Recruit 260 miles away. A ST is $277.  A HV is $427.  Obviously 10 HV's costs way more than 10 ST's.  IF you're ONLY talking about being considered, not about trying to be tight or anything.

At D3 If I sent 10 HV's to a kid (and he accepted them all god forbid), I'm 4270+100 in just to get him considering me.  That's a scholarship and a half, vs 2770+100 for 10 ST's.  Granted, the value of the HV is much more, but the cost is as well.

Wow, I had no idea that the success ratio of getting them to accept HVs/CVs would be that high, between 20 and 50%. I was thinking more along the lines of 1 - 3%. I guess when I was learning this game (as if I ever stopped) I had a really bad run of getting visits rejected leading me to believe they were mostly ineffective. Clouse, I can't thank you enough for helping me out.

Guyo, I always forget to establish that I am only speaking about D1. I can't count the number of times I have spent more than $5000k to get a guy to consider me. There is no doubt that the HVs are worth more than 1.7x a SV.

Oh yeah, in DI it's totally different.  I've spent $45k in D1 and lost (sans ST's lol).  It's almost like mad money at that level.

noleaniml... when i read your post, i figured you meant pulldowns. then, i thought you meant general recruits, but then you talk about pulldowns half way down the thread. are you talking just about players a division up? players a division up will never take a HV or CV unless they are already recruitable (which is theoretically only possible within 70 miles. i say theoretically because ever since the new engine/engine rewrite, there has been some buggy ****). players in your division will definitely take HVs and CVs wayyyyyy more than 1-3%. i haven't played d3 in ages so i can't speak to the %, but i think its pretty high. 

wait... mid major? ok, i see now... yeah, you only want to use scouting trips at d1 to get information, if a high potential is the high/high or low/high kind. that is extremely useful information. but for raw considering credit, scouting trips are pretty inefficient (in most cases, and in the cases when they aren't that efficient, they are never optimal). guys who aren't considering you, who aren't backups, often will reject a good 30% of your HVs or CVs, so just send small batches (if using HVs) and send extras, that way the randomness won't hit you so hard. it only takes a few k to get considered in d1, for non-dropdown players.

any player who is not a dropdown, who is not considering someone else, will always accept your promised start, to the best of my knowledge. using a start + scholarship is a GREAT way to put a feeler out on a player who you aren't sure you are going to target heavily (someone who might be above your head, who you might not be in position to fight for, or someone who might be a backup). just be super careful not to forget to take the starts off... i've had many teams laid to waste by forgetting to take off promised starts for my entire recruiting class :O keep in mind players who are "high relative to your school" won't consider you just on a start + scholarship. its worth learning who will and who will not consider you for $10 and $110.

So this hv/cv visit is only recruit able players? Do phone calls/letters work for pull downs or only st?

Posted by chicomn on 9/8/2014 9:27:00 PM (view original):
So this hv/cv visit is only recruit able players? Do phone calls/letters work for pull downs or only st?

HV/CV can be refused by any player.  ST's are used for pulldowns because it's impossible for the recruit to refuse them.  In theory calls/letters would work for pulldowns, but there's not enough value in them to get a guy to drop with just them (before you reach the max of calls/letters that will anger him).

just jumping in here, is this what you guys are talking about for start/scholly method:

you send guaranteed start+ scholly offer and next cycle you withdraw guaranteed start?

just jumping in here, is this what you guys are talking about for start/scholly method:

you send guaranteed start+ scholly offer and next cycle you withdraw guaranteed start? does this not have negative effects or is this where you counter with hv/cv to keep interest.

Posted by gillispie1 on 9/8/2014 9:25:00 PM (view original):
wait... mid major? ok, i see now... yeah, you only want to use scouting trips at d1 to get information, if a high potential is the high/high or low/high kind. that is extremely useful information. but for raw considering credit, scouting trips are pretty inefficient (in most cases, and in the cases when they aren't that efficient, they are never optimal). guys who aren't considering you, who aren't backups, often will reject a good 30% of your HVs or CVs, so just send small batches (if using HVs) and send extras, that way the randomness won't hit you so hard. it only takes a few k to get considered in d1, for non-dropdown players.

any player who is not a dropdown, who is not considering someone else, will always accept your promised start, to the best of my knowledge. using a start + scholarship is a GREAT way to put a feeler out on a player who you aren't sure you are going to target heavily (someone who might be above your head, who you might not be in position to fight for, or someone who might be a backup). just be super careful not to forget to take the starts off... i've had many teams laid to waste by forgetting to take off promised starts for my entire recruiting class :O keep in mind players who are "high relative to your school" won't consider you just on a start + scholarship. its worth learning who will and who will not consider you for $10 and $110.

Would you mind expanding a little on this $110 strategy?  How much recruiting effort is required to counter the negative value from pulling a promised start?