I feel like this addition would make recruiting better (at D1 at least) and more fun for most teams...

Each recruiting action (like Home Visits, Campus Visits, Scouting Trips) is capped at like 30 each per recruit.

PROS:
-Promises become inherently more valuable
-Recruiting battles would no longer be all about available funds but more about promises and the recruit's preferences
-Considering credit matters again, and the effectiveness of recruit "poaching" would be reduced
-The Shotgun method of recruiting makes a LOT more sense
-Top teams will begin to target more recruits than they have scholarships since they can't guarantee victories on the ones they want; meanwhile, lower-tier teams will target these perceived 'backups' since they won't necessarily sign with the bigger team, and etc on down through the ranks. It sets up an exciting-to-follow chain reaction when the signing period starts.
-Big recruits could end up considering 5-6 schools at once since its worth it for the big schools to pursue them
-Nationalizes recruiting for top teams since you can only spend a limited amount of cash on the top recruits in your area anyway
-Permits low-D1 teams to spend more on scouting and less on emergency battle-funding
-Saving cash from season-to-season is a viable strategy and may be advisable for some teams. Maybe one team can hit the "select all" button for FSS NOT by accident
-Realism; say what you will about misplaced importance of realism in the game, but we would no longer have to suspend disbelief when you somehow visit a recruit's home 115 times immediately after another team visited him 80. Meanwhile the recruit apparently thinks to himself "it was that 111th visit when I knew that Rutgers was the place for me over Seton Hall, in spite of my favorite school being Seton Hall growing up"

CONS:
-The top, A+ teams could conceivably get all the good recruits across the country if they make promises to all the freshmen
-Teams could conceivably stockpile funds way too easily and money becomes no object

The limits would probably be set higher than D2/D3 schools could reach, or at least very difficult for them to reach.

Thoughts?

It might make it better for D1 teams - I don't know, I don't coach there - but wouldn't it effectively kill the top recruiters at D2? 

Most of the things you listed under PROS would essentially eliminate the chances for a D2 team to pulldown the marginal D1 recruits.

I think your example is a bit extreme. I don't doubt some HD recruits have gotten 115 home visits, but this is not the norm. 

That said, I do think campus visits should be capped at 1 per recruit per school. Once you've used the campus visit for a kid, it should no longer be an option in future recruiting cycles.

I like the general thoughts here, I think to make it work you would have to create larger penalties for not fulfilling a promise to a player. Then A+ teams couldn't just promise players starts and minutes and not see any consequences.

 In my opinion a cap would discourage recruiting battles as a lower prestige school would be hopeless in a straight up evaluation. The way I see it is we already have a cap and that is your total recruiting balance, I would rather not see a cap within a cap. Under the current situation if you land on a recruit with another coach you have to look at the differences between your schools situation and the other schools situation and then make a decision if you have a realistic shot at the recruit, with a cap you will lessen that strategy.

Posted by plague on 5/31/2013 10:52:00 AM (view original):
 In my opinion a cap would discourage recruiting battles as a lower prestige school would be hopeless in a straight up evaluation. The way I see it is we already have a cap and that is your total recruiting balance, I would rather not see a cap within a cap. Under the current situation if you land on a recruit with another coach you have to look at the differences between your schools situation and the other schools situation and then make a decision if you have a realistic shot at the recruit, with a cap you will lessen that strategy.

The idea is that promising playing time and the recruit's preferences would make up for the difference

at D1, lower prestige schools are ALREADY discouraged from battling higher prestige, and on top of that, if they do battle, they're waving a flag that says "my funds are low from this battle! pick on me! take my other recruits!"

Posted by zbrent716 on 5/31/2013 10:33:00 AM (view original):
It might make it better for D1 teams - I don't know, I don't coach there - but wouldn't it effectively kill the top recruiters at D2? 

Most of the things you listed under PROS would essentially eliminate the chances for a D2 team to pulldown the marginal D1 recruits.

There are only so many signings to be had at D1, so while the D2 pulldowns might be considering more D1 schools, they won't necessarily get to sign there. Half the D2 pulldowns might end up considering a D1 school until three cycles into the signing period. then since he was everyone's backup, he signs with nobody and is undecided all-of-a-sudden.

Plus, even better recruits than usual might slip through the cracks in the chaos of D1 schools signing top targets and backups simultaneously

Posted by plague on 5/31/2013 10:52:00 AM (view original):
 In my opinion a cap would discourage recruiting battles as a lower prestige school would be hopeless in a straight up evaluation. The way I see it is we already have a cap and that is your total recruiting balance, I would rather not see a cap within a cap. Under the current situation if you land on a recruit with another coach you have to look at the differences between your schools situation and the other schools situation and then make a decision if you have a realistic shot at the recruit, with a cap you will lessen that strategy.

also, is it really the worst thing to lessen the importance of "should I battle?" decisions? If you stretch yourself too thin in the Big East, as i'm sure you know, you get OWNED by the other big schools.

Posted by kcsundevil on 5/31/2013 10:36:00 AM (view original):
I think your example is a bit extreme. I don't doubt some HD recruits have gotten 115 home visits, but this is not the norm. 

That said, I do think campus visits should be capped at 1 per recruit per school. Once you've used the campus visit for a kid, it should no longer be an option in future recruiting cycles.

Wait until you have some serious D1 battles, 115 HVs is nothing, that's not even $40k for a local recruit.

In general I'm not a huge fan, by placing limits on the amount of actions you'll be making prestige MORE important, which will help the rich get richer. Remember that promises are affected by prestige too, the same promise from an A+ is more valuable than from an A-, which is more valuable from a B.

I'm also pretty strongly opposed to anything that adds more emphasis to a completely random part of the game (recruit preferences). I have had a decent run at UCLA and it has been probably 4-5 seasons since ANY CA recruit has listed me as their favorite school, and probably more like 15 seasons since there was a 2-star or better.

Posted by jetwildcat on 5/31/2013 11:15:00 AM (view original):

Posted by zbrent716 on 5/31/2013 10:33:00 AM (view original):
It might make it better for D1 teams - I don't know, I don't coach there - but wouldn't it effectively kill the top recruiters at D2? 

Most of the things you listed under PROS would essentially eliminate the chances for a D2 team to pulldown the marginal D1 recruits.

There are only so many signings to be had at D1, so while the D2 pulldowns might be considering more D1 schools, they won't necessarily get to sign there. Half the D2 pulldowns might end up considering a D1 school until three cycles into the signing period. then since he was everyone's backup, he signs with nobody and is undecided all-of-a-sudden.

Plus, even better recruits than usual might slip through the cracks in the chaos of D1 schools signing top targets and backups simultaneously

Perhaps, but you initially said "limits would probably be set higher than D2/D3 schools could reach, or at least very difficult for them to reach."

Given that and with the fact you still have SIM recruits, D2 coaches who want pulldowns are going to be relegated to inactivity until three cycles into the signing period (or wherever) and just hoping the players he wants were backups for everyone and everyone fills their spots and then he is undecided again. You effectively kill pulldowns as a first option, instead more or less modifying the drop-down wait-and-see approach as the only choice.

Capping Scouting Trips could also impact pulldowns, as I've (rarely) used 30 scouting trips on someone who gave me the backup message and still not yet pulled him down.

Also, you mention the possibility of someone being "everyone's backup" - how is this determined? As I said, I don't recruit D1, but wouldn't the top D1 schools (or at least those with $ to burn) hit the action limit on more recruits than scholarships available under your system? How do coaches distinguish the players they *really* want to sign from the backups? Only through promises, so now promises *must* be made, regardless of team makeup?

I do like the general idea of promises being *much much much* more important, and the penalties for breaking them being extremely severe, but - while interesting - I think imposing action limits radically changing the landscape in D2/D3 in a less-than-positive way, particularly given the unclear (to me) benefit at D1.

Posted by jetwildcat on 5/31/2013 11:17:00 AM (view original):

Posted by plague on 5/31/2013 10:52:00 AM (view original):
 In my opinion a cap would discourage recruiting battles as a lower prestige school would be hopeless in a straight up evaluation. The way I see it is we already have a cap and that is your total recruiting balance, I would rather not see a cap within a cap. Under the current situation if you land on a recruit with another coach you have to look at the differences between your schools situation and the other schools situation and then make a decision if you have a realistic shot at the recruit, with a cap you will lessen that strategy.

also, is it really the worst thing to lessen the importance of "should I battle?" decisions? If you stretch yourself too thin in the Big East, as i'm sure you know, you get OWNED by the other big schools.

The decision on whether or not to get involved in a battle is the primary strategic decision in the D1 game...  I can't imagine that many of the better coaches would have any response to this question than "yes, that's a horrible thing."  It really surprises me that you do.

Also, I think the advantage this would give to top-tier teams has been, if anything, understated so far.  The strategy for some of the more successful mid-majors and Big 6 rebuilds has been to utilize 6-man classes, sometimes 2 of them, to grab a couple of top-tier recruits every 4 seasons or so.  If that's no longer an option it gets even harder for the second-tier schools to ever dream of going to a F4, or even really a S16 for all but the very best coaches.  Right now there are some very successful mid-major conferences, and in some cases they actually pull in more recruiting funds than a few of the Big 6, but they still don't have quite the prestige.  You'd be handicapping all of those guys if you don't let them wield their superior funds against the guys with the A to A+ prestige.

Just a bad idea all around...  I'm guessing a response to some massive battle you just lost?  Or a poaching incident you fell victim to?  Or even a battle you won but blew your budget and wound up handicapping your team because of it?

Capping effort would make things much more realistic.  I have to imagine that in real life, the 100th visit or phone call by a coach does not have nearly the value that the first couple do.  A cap would also create many more battles, which is also way more realistic.  Basically, in real life, a team can make "maximum effective effort" on more than one player.

I agree that making this change alone might give even more of an advantage to the high prestige teams, although I'd argue that it would be hard to give these teams much more of an advantage than they already have, because coaches usually avoid battles like the plague anyway, so once a high-prestige coach plants his flag, that's usually the ballgame.

But in any case, the way to fix that potential problem is to rewrite recruting so that it's the player picking the team, rather than the team picking the player, which it is now.  Make the player's close-to-home and favorite team info matter MUCH more.  Also, randomize the player's decision a little bit - make the team with more effort win less than 100% of the time.  Creating more uncertainty in which team a player chooses, along with not penalize teams for casting wider nets, will create a much more realistic recruiting cycle with more battles.

Posted by acn24 on 5/31/2013 11:48:00 AM (view original):

Posted by kcsundevil on 5/31/2013 10:36:00 AM (view original):
I think your example is a bit extreme. I don't doubt some HD recruits have gotten 115 home visits, but this is not the norm. 

That said, I do think campus visits should be capped at 1 per recruit per school. Once you've used the campus visit for a kid, it should no longer be an option in future recruiting cycles.

Wait until you have some serious D1 battles, 115 HVs is nothing, that's not even $40k for a local recruit.

In general I'm not a huge fan, by placing limits on the amount of actions you'll be making prestige MORE important, which will help the rich get richer. Remember that promises are affected by prestige too, the same promise from an A+ is more valuable than from an A-, which is more valuable from a B.

I'm also pretty strongly opposed to anything that adds more emphasis to a completely random part of the game (recruit preferences). I have had a decent run at UCLA and it has been probably 4-5 seasons since ANY CA recruit has listed me as their favorite school, and probably more like 15 seasons since there was a 2-star or better.

isn't recruit generation pretty random anyway? just like you have to evaluate what type of randomly-generated players fit your team, you need to see which randomly-generated players you can recruit.

The idea with promises is that the A+ schools would be less likely to offer such promises, less they underuse or annoy their upperclassmen.

Posted by zbrent716 on 5/31/2013 12:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jetwildcat on 5/31/2013 11:15:00 AM (view original):

Posted by zbrent716 on 5/31/2013 10:33:00 AM (view original):
It might make it better for D1 teams - I don't know, I don't coach there - but wouldn't it effectively kill the top recruiters at D2? 

Most of the things you listed under PROS would essentially eliminate the chances for a D2 team to pulldown the marginal D1 recruits.

There are only so many signings to be had at D1, so while the D2 pulldowns might be considering more D1 schools, they won't necessarily get to sign there. Half the D2 pulldowns might end up considering a D1 school until three cycles into the signing period. then since he was everyone's backup, he signs with nobody and is undecided all-of-a-sudden.

Plus, even better recruits than usual might slip through the cracks in the chaos of D1 schools signing top targets and backups simultaneously

Perhaps, but you initially said "limits would probably be set higher than D2/D3 schools could reach, or at least very difficult for them to reach."

Given that and with the fact you still have SIM recruits, D2 coaches who want pulldowns are going to be relegated to inactivity until three cycles into the signing period (or wherever) and just hoping the players he wants were backups for everyone and everyone fills their spots and then he is undecided again. You effectively kill pulldowns as a first option, instead more or less modifying the drop-down wait-and-see approach as the only choice.

Capping Scouting Trips could also impact pulldowns, as I've (rarely) used 30 scouting trips on someone who gave me the backup message and still not yet pulled him down.

Also, you mention the possibility of someone being "everyone's backup" - how is this determined? As I said, I don't recruit D1, but wouldn't the top D1 schools (or at least those with $ to burn) hit the action limit on more recruits than scholarships available under your system? How do coaches distinguish the players they *really* want to sign from the backups? Only through promises, so now promises *must* be made, regardless of team makeup?

I do like the general idea of promises being *much much much* more important, and the penalties for breaking them being extremely severe, but - while interesting - I think imposing action limits radically changing the landscape in D2/D3 in a less-than-positive way, particularly given the unclear (to me) benefit at D1.

if a player were your backup, you might not offer him a scholarship until your top options fall through. OR that might not be worth the risk to wait it out (as scholarships carry consideration weight) and instead you could just take the risk that he signs first.

it would impact the drop-down system, but i don't know that it would be for the worse.

a per cycle cap might have some of the benefits and avoid some of the detriments discussed here

might actually help B prestige schools - which would be willing to do the max - lets say - 5 HV per cycle.  If an A school then came along in cycle 5, they would be locked in as 20 HV behind.....etc....