Has anyone ever compiled a table for where the ceiling for each prestige level resides in terms of what the highest overall rated players that can be seen at each prestige grade within a division? 

For instance -- I just dropped from A+ to an A prestige when Naismith rolled. Prior to the roll, I was able to see incoming freshmen whose ratings went as high as 544. After the rollover and drop, my highest ranked D2 freshman recruit is a 540. So I can surmise that somewhere between those two figures is the crossover point from A to A+. 

I know there are some recruits that a person might see that are the product of eligibility and/or distance that normally wouldn't appear at a particular division for a particular school, not to mention that nobody knows where, on the spectrum of 'B+' a given school resides at a given point in time. That said, it would seem "in general" that a rough approximation could be made at D3 and D2 for where each prestige level generally allows a coach to see and that knowing such information would be potentially useful during recruiting (if I know a coach with a certain rating won't see my recruit at our division, I might not invest as much early...or it might tip me that Player X was likely an early pulldown and therefore I've got a better chance to win a battle for Player Y from said coach).

I've seen lots of talk about prestige from time to time on the boards, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it nailed down to what recruits are visible to a C+ vs. a B-, etc. 

Tark....A.....536

Phelan....B+.....523

You'll also have to account for players within the magic 70 mile radius too. Those guys might not normally be available to certain schools, but inside that circle, voila, all of a sudden they're interested.

heres a question:

in joes tark example, the highest rated D2 recruit he can see is 536,  but id figure that theres alot of kids on his D1 screen rated lower than 536.

is it randomness that accounts for that?
or if you used some formula to determine how good a recruit is (using potential,  and weighting attributes),  could you make a cleaner line?  (ijn other words, predict with more certainty whether a kid will or wont drop, etc)

I also believe it changes a bit from season to season (and from world to world too). There have been plenty of times where one season I could talk to players ranked at a certain position (say PG) and the next season with the same prestige, even unranked players wouldn't list me as a back-up.

Posted by dcy0827 on 12/14/2014 1:14:00 PM (view original):
I also believe it changes a bit from season to season (and from world to world too). There have been plenty of times where one season I could talk to players ranked at a certain position (say PG) and the next season with the same prestige, even unranked players wouldn't list me as a back-up.

Totally agree that there's likely a little drift based upon each season's randomly generated crop of recruits (and the distance comment you made in your earlier post). Nailing down the exact boundary would be impossible, but even if you know the neighborhood where one prestige gives way to the next, it could be useful. 

When you say "ranked players," I assume you're talking about overall position ranking (the #168 PG) vs. ratings. The rankings definitely bounce all over and I think have more to do with the crop of random generations more than prestige (aside from the fact that prestige impacts which ones will appear for you if their rating is in the range). 

I also think, flashing to what oldave said, that part of the answer might lie in how the game ranks players. I just noticed that at some point the Player Roles section added the default formulas for how the game views each player (at least that's what I assume the default for each position is...). I wonder if a person ran through those formulas if that might explain why a player rated 527 shows up on your D2 screen while a player rated 497 thinks he'll be going D1. 

II havn't done an indepth analysis, but I have noticed one clear reason for the randomness. It is GPA. For example, if you have two 508 players, one with a 2.4 GPA and one with a 3.1 GPA, the 2.4 will be D2 and the 3.1 a D1 player. This happens to be almost an exact real example. The actual numbers were 506 - 3.1 D1, 508, 2.4 D2. I have seen this pattern over and over. GPA definitely counts in the equation.

How many players are available in the world are a factor as well.