I just finished my first recruiting season in DII Knight, and while this fortunately didn't cost me any of my main targets, I completely misinterpreted the "not 100% committed" WOTS message and it almost cost me (and did force me to offer lots of starts, although that's not a problem in the first year of a rebuild). 

Anyways, I'm coaching Alaska-Anchorage, and I'd been told one of the keys to recruiting Alaska is to grab any half-decent local player, which should be doable cheaply. So I found a local player that looked like a solid scorer, albeit iffy defender. Had a Sim on him, but the WOTS message was a weak one (oscillated between "very open to other offers" and "not 100% committed"). I figured that meant, with the kid only 120 miles away, I could win this battle for 2-3 grand and then focus my cash elsewhere. 

I sent 3 STs, 7 HVs, and 2 CVs. Never did take the lead. Ended up running out of money. This was a D2 sim with C+ prestige (I have C-). 

So my question: how open to other offers is "open to other offers." Clearly, there's a range, since I've taken the lead before with just 3 HVs. But it seemed to me that 3 STs, 7 HVs, and 2 CVs was a whole lot for fighting a Sim with a "not 100% committed" message. Evidently I was wrong. Anybody know the high end of this range? 

Seems like you should have been able to get him easier than that.

I sure thought so. I've fought some persistent Sims before, but never this persistent. 

I've had a similar situation and ended up spending about 10k on a player local to me in DII

When did you try and go after this kid?  Was it day 1 of recruiting or did your efforts start closer to signings?  I ask because the last couple of times I've recruited (D3) I've had a helluva lot more trouble going after SIM-considered players with the same WOTS message if I START pursuing them on signing day.  In fact, my last go around in Wooden I had all CV and HV rejected by a kid that was on my D3 search with your same WOTS message (and my prestige was more than a letter grade better than simmy's was) and I started going after him around the 10am cycle on signing day.  And it was the same story in Rupp when I tried to get on a guy late that was considering a SIM. 

Also be aware that sometimes the WOTS changes over time when a SIM is recruiting a kid.  This doesn't make sense, but it's happened to me when I was trying to pulldown a D2 kid (that a D2 sim was already considering) while I was at D3.  The D2 kid started off "not sold" or "very open to other offers" or whatever early in recruiting, but I really wanted him and started pulling him down a few cycles after recruiting began.  Well 42 evals later and with signings fast approaching, he still wasn't considering me.  I found this odd based on a previous pull-down attempt on a D2 kid when a SIM was on him as well, but I had no choice but to move on at that point.  I decided to check the most recent WOTS message again.  Lo and behold, the kid -- still being recruited by a D2 SIM -- was now "very tight".  I was like WTF?  How did that happen?  I hadn't checked WOTS since the very first 1am message on the first night of recruiting and this "very tight" message was the 1pm WOTS just before signings.  So maybe the WOTS message got stronger for your kid over time also.

Also, I'd point out that the level of effort needed to go from "very open to other offers" to "very solid" on the WOTS messages doesn't change from D1 to D2 to D3.  So what seems like a lot of effort at D3 (or even D2) could still fall short of the "very tight" threshold needed.

I sent a cv. To a sim considering recruit and didn't even get on the considering list. I ended up losing to a sim after sending another cv, 1 hv, 15 minutes, a st and like 10I letters.

Posted by darnoc29099 on 7/4/2013 9:55:00 AM (view original):
When did you try and go after this kid?  Was it day 1 of recruiting or did your efforts start closer to signings?  I ask because the last couple of times I've recruited (D3) I've had a helluva lot more trouble going after SIM-considered players with the same WOTS message if I START pursuing them on signing day.  In fact, my last go around in Wooden I had all CV and HV rejected by a kid that was on my D3 search with your same WOTS message (and my prestige was more than a letter grade better than simmy's was) and I started going after him around the 10am cycle on signing day.  And it was the same story in Rupp when I tried to get on a guy late that was considering a SIM. 

I started with STs on day one and moved to HVs and CVs on day two. By signing day I was locked in another battle and was forced to give this one up entirely. 

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/4/2013 11:33:00 AM (view original):
I sent a cv. To a sim considering recruit and didn't even get on the considering list. I ended up losing to a sim after sending another cv, 1 hv, 15 minutes, a st and like 10I letters.

In this case, I sent 3 STs, 6 HVs, and 1 CV and didn't get on the considering list. The 2nd CV put me on the list. I also tried minutes but they were consistently rejected. 

good point jdno. I've only gotten a "very tight" message about one of my own recruits once. Although, looking back at my notes, it was after 2 CVs, 2 HVs, and 6 STs. Which is less than it took me to lose to the Sim who was not very tight. So I'm still confused. 

Posted by jdno on 7/4/2013 10:56:00 AM (view original):
Also be aware that sometimes the WOTS changes over time when a SIM is recruiting a kid.  This doesn't make sense, but it's happened to me when I was trying to pulldown a D2 kid (that a D2 sim was already considering) while I was at D3.  The D2 kid started off "not sold" or "very open to other offers" or whatever early in recruiting, but I really wanted him and started pulling him down a few cycles after recruiting began.  Well 42 evals later and with signings fast approaching, he still wasn't considering me.  I found this odd based on a previous pull-down attempt on a D2 kid when a SIM was on him as well, but I had no choice but to move on at that point.  I decided to check the most recent WOTS message again.  Lo and behold, the kid -- still being recruited by a D2 SIM -- was now "very tight".  I was like WTF?  How did that happen?  I hadn't checked WOTS since the very first 1am message on the first night of recruiting and this "very tight" message was the 1pm WOTS just before signings.  So maybe the WOTS message got stronger for your kid over time also.

Also, I'd point out that the level of effort needed to go from "very open to other offers" to "very solid" on the WOTS messages doesn't change from D1 to D2 to D3.  So what seems like a lot of effort at D3 (or even D2) could still fall short of the "very tight" threshold needed.

jdno - considering credit definitely could push a sim, or any human, to a higher WOTS without any additional effort.

i dont agree the level of effort is the same in d1, d2, d3. hell, i dont even think its the same within any single division. there definitely seems to be some correlation between the recruit's goodness or perceived level of goodness, and how he perceives your school. just like with ineligibles, just like with thresholds to get considered.

Posted by coach_billyg on 7/4/2013 2:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jdno on 7/4/2013 10:56:00 AM (view original):
Also be aware that sometimes the WOTS changes over time when a SIM is recruiting a kid.  This doesn't make sense, but it's happened to me when I was trying to pulldown a D2 kid (that a D2 sim was already considering) while I was at D3.  The D2 kid started off "not sold" or "very open to other offers" or whatever early in recruiting, but I really wanted him and started pulling him down a few cycles after recruiting began.  Well 42 evals later and with signings fast approaching, he still wasn't considering me.  I found this odd based on a previous pull-down attempt on a D2 kid when a SIM was on him as well, but I had no choice but to move on at that point.  I decided to check the most recent WOTS message again.  Lo and behold, the kid -- still being recruited by a D2 SIM -- was now "very tight".  I was like WTF?  How did that happen?  I hadn't checked WOTS since the very first 1am message on the first night of recruiting and this "very tight" message was the 1pm WOTS just before signings.  So maybe the WOTS message got stronger for your kid over time also.

Also, I'd point out that the level of effort needed to go from "very open to other offers" to "very solid" on the WOTS messages doesn't change from D1 to D2 to D3.  So what seems like a lot of effort at D3 (or even D2) could still fall short of the "very tight" threshold needed.

jdno - considering credit definitely could push a sim, or any human, to a higher WOTS without any additional effort.

i dont agree the level of effort is the same in d1, d2, d3. hell, i dont even think its the same within any single division. there definitely seems to be some correlation between the recruit's goodness or perceived level of goodness, and how he perceives your school. just like with ineligibles, just like with thresholds to get considered.

This has the ring of truth, given that the only time I've gotten tight with a recruit was when I was a D2 school slumming it with a 430-overall player. 

I hate to be an *** (well, not all that much...), but I can't help wondering if you'd spent your money more efficiently if you could have won that battle.  Why would you EVER send scouting trips to a local recruit in your level that's already considering someone else?  As a general rule, I probably wouldn't try to battle anyone, even a sim, over a guy I wasn't pretty darn sure I wanted.  And if I wanted him, I wouldn't waste money on scouting trips.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/4/2013 8:59:00 PM (view original):
I hate to be an *** (well, not all that much...), but I can't help wondering if you'd spent your money more efficiently if you could have won that battle.  Why would you EVER send scouting trips to a local recruit in your level that's already considering someone else?  As a general rule, I probably wouldn't try to battle anyone, even a sim, over a guy I wasn't pretty darn sure I wanted.  And if I wanted him, I wouldn't waste money on scouting trips.

That's a legitimate thing to wonder. Here is my answer: I'm in Alaska. The pool of guys I can win a battle on is small, so if a guy might be worthwhile, I figured it was worth a couple STs. Since I spent a total of $550 on STs, I don't figure it's what lost me the battle. 

But honestly, if I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have tried to battle smarter here, I would've avoided this battle entirely. I figured three grand or so (which is 7 HVs and a CV) would've done it. I wasn't prepared to go 5+ grand deep. 

I still not sure I understand this answer - are you saying you used a few STs to see the kids high-highs or that you threw them on as additional effort? I could see wanting to determine if some of the highs are low or high, but otherwise STs have little use in battles generally...