Posted by usc4life on 6/28/2012 11:02:00 AM (view original):
After reading most of this thread, I think its safe to say that there is a general consensus on these things:

1) In-season recruiting would cause more problems than it would solve.

2) We need more "nationalization" and battling in D1 recruiting.

3) Comprehensive scouting visits (or something to that effect).

4) Extend the first recruiting window by more than 2 hours!

Agreed 100%.
Just a few minor tweaks should be sufficient. Not overhaul the whole system.

Also on #4, honestly don't think the 1st recruiting period shoul be longer. But as countless people have said, just be able to pre-load your 1st cycle actions as soon as the new season rolls over. Just for the 1st cycle only. A day or so should be enough for coaches to plan for recruiting and set it up.

Suggestion regarding transfers. Make it realistic. A transfer must sit one year at his new school unless he transfers down a level. (DI to DII or DII to DIII.) DII to DIII sits.

The one exception I would make would be a "Hardship Transfer." That would be a player who is transfers because guaranteed minutes or start did not meet the
80% rule including post season.  Could be eligible immediately at any level. Perhaps there could be some kind of recruiting credit or advantage for  programs that recruited the player that the coach got with the guarantees.  (More than just phone calls or mailings. The effort must be at least a minimum of a SV, HV, CV ,or scholly.) 

Posted by wronoj on 6/28/2012 1:52:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zhawks on 6/28/2012 12:04:00 PM (view original):

Posted by milkamania on 6/28/2012 8:26:00 AM (view original):
The main problem with the idea of in season recruiting and signings that no one has answered yet is what to do about job changes.  How can we realistically expect something like this   "This continues throughout the season. Signings start at the mid-point of conference play (so 20 cycles in), recruiting ends the day after the NC (on Reflection Day).""  when the coach can just leave for a different school in the offseason.  I don't want anyone else choosing my players for me (although in all fairness I'd probably do better) if I took that open job later. 

How is that any different from how it is now? I agree this is an issue but not the way you are wording it here IMO. You already have someone else's players when you take a new job - that's part of WHY you chose said job. So why can't it just be the same?

Z, the main difference here is that you change jobs, THEN recruit. So you can shape the roster somewhat before you coach a single game... 

So I could have a good season at NCSU, but trouble recruiting, then bail, maybe even to a better spot? Then whoever comes in gets my prestige bump from the good season, but my crappy players or my walk-ons, and has to wait a whole season to get rid of them? That is the big difference. 

I think people are reading way to far into the idea that I threw out there - You would still be able to recruit when you got a new job, never did I say I wanted that to change.

Posted by coachvegas44 on 6/28/2012 2:26:00 PM (view original):
Suggestion regarding transfers. Make it realistic. A transfer must sit one year at his new school unless he transfers down a level. (DI to DII or DII to DIII.) DII to DIII sits.

The one exception I would make would be a "Hardship Transfer." That would be a player who is transfers because guaranteed minutes or start did not meet the
80% rule including post season.  Could be eligible immediately at any level. Perhaps there could be some kind of recruiting credit or advantage for  programs that recruited the player that the coach got with the guarantees.  (More than just phone calls or mailings. The effort must be at least a minimum of a SV, HV, CV ,or scholly.) 

I disagree mightily. I am fine with making transfers more realistic but you can't have a 'hardship waiver' for a player that signed somewhere and doesn't play it just makes there be too many types of recruits. Just because something may be similar to RL doesn't make it best for HD, our players don't have families and friends so you can't have a 'hardship wavier' in HD.

More power for favorite school choice. It should be worth more than it is now, way more. And more 4 or 5 star players who like mid majors and low D1 schools. This would help mid majors and lower D1 schools. This would help low end schools greatly. Maybe even let midmajors or low D1 schools within 50 miles of a 4 or 5 star guy recruit them without being back up options.

"4) As an off the wall idea, perhaps a "Choose your own adventure" dialogue options for home and campus visits. "


Anyone who references Choose Your Own Adventure books is alright in my book. Those things got me through more than my share of family vacation car rides.

You could have inseason recruiting and still be able to shape your roster after taking a new job: just have two signing periods, as in real life.  One signing period during the season and one after.

My early apologies for a novel (and any spelling errors since firefox's spellcheck does not work with this board)

I'm not going to advocate a new system or revamp of the current.  I think both have advantages and disadvantages.

Personalities
I want to see players with personalities (that are obvious and not as hidden).  When I ran a hockey simulation game, I had free agents choose offers based on three factors- The money of the contract, the playing time offered, and the team's success.  Some cared 80% about playing time, some 80% about money.  I'd like to see something simliar here.  The categories I would use would be-
Playing time-
Coaches would promise a range of playing time (20-30, 10-20, 10-, redshirt) for any player they recruit.  Since booster gifts are gone, this also allows for the reputation to still remain important.  Eliminate starts as a recruiting option, as we've seen that manipulated, and make the promises for 26 games instead of any chance of sitting in some games but keeping up the average.
Region/Favorite Schools-
I know growing up in high school, for me it was Indiana, Indiana, Indiana, although I lived in Colorado.  But the majority of the local kids were either CU or CSU fans.  I would like to see three 'top' schools from the start, with one of them potentially being outside of the region (maybe two on rare cases) to account for moving/parents colleges etc., but at least one being from the region.
Style-
The playing style of the school should intice the player.  Some kids (even if they played slowdown in high school) would love to run, while others are okay with a Bob Knight system.
Your roster-
This may tie into playing time, but a student will look at your roster.  If you have a sophomore starting at PF, and they are a PF, they may be less likely to sign.  This would require some sort of assignment of positions that are realistic for the players on your roster.  In a perfect world, that would be based on where they played the most minutes.

I'm not sure how the revealing/learning of the preferences should be set up, but the system should be simliar to FSS or available on a simple phone call (maybe even a pre-recruiting call to 30 players to find these preferences)

Logistic changes
A few logistic changes I would want for the system.
Cycle timing-
I would like to see cycles increased to 6 hours a cycle.  The average American works 8 hours a day, and sleeps 8 hours a day.  With commutes and other activities, there were times I would go to work and miss three complete cycles.  I believe there's a reason we don't have 4 game a day worlds, and I think recruiting should fall more in line with the check a couple times a day system.
Cycle budgets-
I wish I had more details, but I believe that each cycle should have a maximum recruiting effort.  This could be an artifical way to move 3 hour cycles to 6 hour cycles as well (the budget resets every two cycles).  It's simply not realistic for a team to spend all their recruiting effort at once, and this could keep more engagement throughout all of recruiting.
14 player rosters, more redshirts- 
A 14 player roster with two (or three) redshirts allows for coaches to take more risks during recruiting, more planning, and more chances for transfers due to riding the pine.  This change (for me) would also need to be paired with the removal of carryover cash.
Ratings vision-
I will expand on how below, but I believe that player ratings should be partially hidden.  The base (worst case) would be a range of 30 points (a player in China with no scouting effort) and the best case would be a range of 5 points.

Regions
Outside of high level DI, college sports is a very regional process.  As an example, the Adams State, Colorado DII basketball roster has seven players who either did Juco or High School in Colorado, Two from Arizona, One from Utah.  As you can see, a lot of the roster is from the immediate region.

Pipelines-
If money was no object, I would create realistic pipeline regions (not just states or HS's).  For example, (I use Colorado because I lived here for 17 years including high school) Colorado may have 8 distinct recruiting regions (Denver/Boulder, Colorado Springs/Pueblo, Ski towns, San Luis Valley, Durango area, two on the eastern slode, Northwest part of the state).  For various reasons, the kids in each of these areas play with and know each other in high school and club sports, but really do not know kids outside the region on the whole.  These smaller regions could become pipelines through recruiting history.  I would (without testing, so this may not be the correct anwser) require something similar to 2 or 3 players that completed school (or left for the draft) in the last 5 seasons at that school (or potentially follows a coach).  The region the school is in would also be an automatic pipeline.
Second method of pipelines- an alternative is for a coach to have a rating in each region.  The rating increases with each game played in that region (the excuse given here for CU joining the Pac-10 was to visit LA every season for recruiting), each player recruited, and distance from the school while it decreases with every player that transfers away from that region.
Scouting-
FSS could still exist, but in a different form.  To tie into pipelines, those same regions would have some familiarity for a coach.  A coach at Indiana is bound to know some easy background on a kid at Bloomington South High School, so there should be a base knowledge level of the nearby regions.  I would change scouting services to have levels of knowledge.  So players in the first region would be down to a 10 point spread at the start of the process, and maybe pipelines are down to 20 point ranges.

Minor thoughts
These don't really fit a category, but I'd like to have my opinion out there :)
Watch List-
Our watch list is hard to manage.  Only three categories in a drop down, no notes section for the player, we have to pay to add a player to the watch list once recruiting starts.... just not as smooth as it should be.  I would add a notes box for each player, have 15 custom categories (or stock Low->High for each position), and allow watching for free.
No in-season-
While in-season is the most realistic, it can create havoc, especially at lower levels.  I would support exploring it at DI since that's supposed to be the top challenge, but with the movement of coaches at DII/DIII it may be a big problem.

Thanks for reading, hopefully at least one of these ideas are good :).

What if the auction system was adjusted by instead of giving value based on how much you have invested into a recruit, but instead by how much knowledge you have gained about a recruit through the investment you have made? For example, if each recruit were to have five things that were important to them, your goal would be to find those things out by investing in phone calls, visits, etc. The more resources that you invest, the better chance that you will find out one of the items. You could also limit it to one item per cycle so that pouring a ton of resources into a player at the last minute would give you a pretty good shot at learning a key item about a player, but would not override the team that has been recruiting the guy all along and has already gained three key items.

Recruits that were receiving little attention would be very likely to provide a key item, while recruits that receive a lot of attention would be harder to gain intelligence about. This could be implemented by providing one key item per cycle or day or something like that and the more resources that you put in during that period, the better chance you have of getting it.

I think higher prestige should still override in most instances, at least when there is a significant gap.

I like the recruiting right now for D3.  It's been a long time since I have recruited in D2 and even longer in D1.  But it is different at each level and I think there almost needs to be a seperate logic for each level to reflect the nuances. 

From a D3 prespective, I am not a fan of more battles, at least not under the current logic.  The money is so low tight now, and the diparity between to A Prestige and C Prestige is so wide, it would give even more of a advantage to the better teams than it does now.  This is a game and you want to reward success, but you don't want to penalize inexperience or make it such a daunting task to try to become competative.  We all pay the same amount to play.... well even that isn't true.  The top teams win more credit to play and it cost them less.

The one thing I would like to see changed, (again, in D3 at least), is an ever widening advantage to the first team to recruit a player. If a C- prestige team has been recruiting a guy since the first cycle, it should be almost imposible for even an A+ Prestige team to come in on the last cycle before signing and take a recruit away.  Not to say it should be imposible, but say after each cycle passes there is a 5% less likelyhood a recruit would consider another school.  So by the last cycle before signing, in order to take a recuit from a team that was recruiting since the first cycle, there is only a 10% chance you can steal him away. And that would almost have to be a much better Prestige team, spending a lot more money.  This is built into the sytem now, but you would never know it.  It has no affect at all right now.  The only drawback to this system is the penalty to the coach who, for personal reasons, can't recruit for the first day or two.  Then again, season long recruiting would take care of that.  But to be honest, I love the 4-5 days of recruiting.

Man, if I read that "just because something is one way in real life, doesn't make it good for HD" any more, I swear I'm gonna puke. 

Posted by emy1013 on 6/30/2012 11:23:00 PM (view original):
Man, if I read that "just because something is one way in real life, doesn't make it good for HD" any more, I swear I'm gonna puke. 

im trying to find girt's post that says as much, but for the first time ever, i do not see one!! (maybe i didn't look back far enough)

I had a thought about recruiting bonus money that I thought I'd throw out there.  It's one of those things that doesn't really jive with the real world but might work in WIS to help with the competitive balance, since we all know that reality and WIS don't (and shouldn't) always agree.

What if each round of the NT was worth approx 50% less than the previous round?  So for instance at D1:

Round of 64:  20k per team/game
Round of 32:  10k per team/game
Sweet 16: 5k per team/game
Elite 8: 3k per team/game
Final 4: 2k per team/game
Championship: 1k per team/game

For the PIT maybe just go 5-4-3-2-1

Gone would be the day where teams would get 50K in bonus money and create an unconquerable divide between them and everyone else, however the elite conferences would still get an advantage in bonus money by virtue of placing more teams in the tournament. I guess it's kind of like taxing the rich?

Here's how it might look.  I'll use the Phalen ACC, Big East, and Summit League which is a mid major with several humans for comparison (Note ACC actually had a far less dominant NT season than is the norm for them, so in a typical year these numbers might even be more exaggerated) In reality the conferences don't matter it's just a comparison of what the numbers could be:

Current system ACC:
3 S16, 1 1st Rd 2 2nd Rd 1 Finals 1 E8 1 PI2 = 490,000 = 41,000 per team

Current system Big East:
1 F4 1 S16 2 2nd Rd 3 1st Rd 1 PI3 = 315,000 = 26,250 per team

Current system Summit League:
1 PI2, 1 1st Rd 1 PI3 = 45,000 = 3,750 per team



NEW system ACC:
3 S16 1 1st Rd 2 2nd Rd 1 Finals 1E8 1PI2 = 273,000 = 22,750 per team

NEW system Big East:
1 F4 1 S16 2 2nd Rd 3 1st Rd 1 PI3 = 207,000 = 17,250 per team

NEW system Summit:
1 PI2 1 1st Rd 1 PI3 = 41,000 =  3, 417 per team

I'm sure on first glance the BCS teams won't like this...especially the top conference in each world because they are going to be hardest hit, but I think ending up with a little more than a full scholarship bonus cash is fair and this system ensures that the top performing BCS conferences still get some edge over the other BCS conferences who will no doubt also be affected.  However the conferences that struggle to send but a few teams to the postseason will go largely unaffected and while they receive substantially less than the BCS schools it's not nearly as out of whack as it was before.

Either the generic money per scholarship in d1 needs to go up to $20,000, or the reward for an NT game in d1 needs to come down to $15,000 so they match.  Conversely, the PT money needs to either stay where it is while the NT money is adjusted to $15,000, or it needs to be adjusted up to about  ~$7,000 so that its about a third of the NT value ... like it is at the other levels.   

Any of the above would probably help reduce the money disparity by a bit.  If you combined eliminating the disparity between a scholarship value and an NT game value with making sure that the PT had the same relationship to the NT it had in the other levels, and also added in that no sub 500 teams could participate in the PT, it would have the effect of A: Giving less overall additional money to the power conferences and B: More money to some of the others, as the BCS conference teams with losing records would no longer automatically go to the PT