Posted by kujayhawk on 10/28/2010 8:01:00 AM (view original):
And funny, I didn't read furry nips post as an accusation.  (Although upon re-reading it, it was.)  Suppose I need to "defend" myself.

Not sure if this will work as a defense or not, but if you look at my team, you'll see that my "national" recruiting excludes the entire northeast corner of the US, which just happens to have the most recruits.  My team is stuck in Maine and now that most teams know how to do pull downs, I found that getting the cream of the crop often meant getting into battles, which as a D3 team I really want to avoid.

The other three corners of the US are relatively sparse with D3 schools and even more so when you consider human coached teams.  And factor in prestige, and it knocks those schools down a notch as well.  Almost all the A level schools are in the northeast with a couple in the Pacific northwest.

So I don't scout the expense states like New York, Pennsylvania, or the like and instead scout a bunch of cheap states which makes my approach "national".  There have been a couple of times where I've been stretched thin.  Such as what led me to sign Samuel Bellamy (the original point of the thread).  Were I truly recruiting nationally with some nefarious methods, I'd never have signed a guy like Bellamy who had coming out of high school had 37 speed with average potential for growth.  I don't scout the entire country, just a wide geographic region.

The benefit of doing so is that I believe (maybe incorrectly) is that it best allows me to take advantage of my A level prestige.  Recruiting in the Northeast, I can easily be beat by pull downs and/or a rival team within 70 miles.  If I'm competing with a team for a recruit in Hawaii (I have two on my team), the costs to us both are almost for sure equal.  I wait for the drop down and then try to lock a player up with promises.  Other schools are too far away to compete with a relatively moderate recruiting push from me.

And like 4green2 mentions, I use 30-40% of my FSS money after signing start.  I'll pick eight relatively cheap states for starters and if I can't find enough targets and/or my drop down targets get taken away by D2 teams, I'll spread beyond after signings begin.

It's a strategy that has worked well for me now.  But I also believe that if three or four other teams tried to replicate it, I'd be in for a world of hurt.  And if D3 was actually full, there's zero chance of success.  But right now there aren't that many human coaches and they aren't in the places I'm currently scouting.  To flatter myself, I'm employing a Moneyball strategy.  The second I get competition, I'm going to have to rethink things, but for now it's working.

If I were you tkimble, I wouldn't try the same strategy.  Me doing this was in large part based on my team being stuck up in Maine.  You're in a pretty sweet locale for your D3 team so I'd stick with a traditional strategy.

Smart recruiting.  I probably wouldn't have shared that with the masses.     

Didn't necessarily want to share, bscoresby.  But also figured I didn't want the accusation of cheating to be attached to my name either.  I'm one of the less frequent posters on this board but I'd still like to have a decent reputation.

For what it's worth, my strategy is successful in that I am able to get recruits that most of the A level schools ignore because they are too far away.  But it's not *that* successful and at times I can end up with guys like Bellamy who are a mixed bag.

The D3 world is pretty empty in Allen and while I'm one of the top 25 D3 coaches, I'm not top 10.  If I was *really* onto something, I'd have much greater success on the court that what I actually am.

That said, I'd have preferred not to share because I'm going if a couple of others start doing it, I'll get into trouble.  The one thing that I do have going for me is that if others do join, it's going to be just as risky for them as well.

I started using a strat similar to urs kujayhawk in my last recruiting cycle. Got a team in MA but didn't have enough talent dropping down so I went national in a similar approach. 

It's a great approach, kujayhawk. Not that you needed to defend yourself against a baseless accusation, but from a selfish perspective, it's interesting to hear how you thought about it. I'd been thinking about trying a similar strategy myself this year, when I have 5 open spots and (seemingly) a pretty shallow local recruiting pool.

someone mentioned earlier about fss after signing, does fss get cheaper as players are signed and each state has fewer players?

Posted by tianyi7886 on 10/28/2010 10:57:00 AM (view original):
someone mentioned earlier about fss after signing, does fss get cheaper as players are signed and each state has fewer players?

Yep. Price is calculated off the number of unsigned recruits left in that state, so it keeps going down after signings start.     

Posted by bhansalid00 on 10/28/2010 10:59:00 AM (view original):

Posted by tianyi7886 on 10/28/2010 10:57:00 AM (view original):
someone mentioned earlier about fss after signing, does fss get cheaper as players are signed and each state has fewer players?

Yep. Price is calculated off the number of unsigned recruits left in that state, so it keeps going down after signings start.     

Wow that's a huge edge, especially after all the D1 players are gone, since D3 teams can't recruit them anyway. Very helpful tip 

Delete that recruiting 101 post jayhawk!  My D3 team is in VA and has players from 11 different states, none of which are VA.  The two from the same state come from CA.  That said, 8 of them are still east coast so it's not as bragworthy as it sounds and recruiting is one of my many weaknesses so am usually the guy scrounging for scraps on the last day.

I've been called many things but the only time it got to me was when I was called a cheat at a poker table - and he did so when I was in the bathroom - not present to defend myself.  I had nothing to hide and everyone was arguing in my defense when I returned but I was steaming really hard after that one.  Fwiw - he accused me of going south, but I had actually only reached in my pocket to bring more chips on the table and reload after having a large bluff snapped off by the nuts.  So I actually had the table max in front of my seat, having done the exact opposite of what he accused me of, and would have welcomed the opportunity to add more in order to cover the guy who just doubled through me.  Adding to the ridiculousness, villain had less than I had before I reloaded so was totally unaffected either way.  

I think that "national" strategy is not so rare as it seems on the surface...

I'd agree wronoj.  I'm think I'm a bit rare in that I don't even bother scouting my own backyard most seasons beyond Maine.  But most teams have a bit of a national reach to them.

My strategy works pretty well in that once I find a recruit (which isn't always the case when you don't scout the big states) and assuming he doesn't go to a D2 school, my prestige is good enough to recruit him before anybody else.  But at the same time, there are 10-25 other schools that have better prestige than me and while I'm pretty lucky in getting a good number of the targets I want, there are A+ schools who beat me to the punch every season.  A couple of coaches in particular are really good at getting my primary targets.  Which reinforces their prestige advantage over me .... which means they will continuously have the same advantage in future seasons as well.  And so I'd guess they would continue their national recruiting as well.

For me to pretend I'm the only one doing this would be a flat out lie.  And even to the extent that I am in the Northeast and refuse to scout New York or Pennsylvania probably doesn't make me all that unique either.