What is the key to winning yellow light battles with human players?  This is my 20th season, with good success (257-43 record to date). In my world, My school is the winningest program in the world. I've been at the school 7 years and my worst record has been 14-2.  But I win about 10% of my yellow light battles, no matter what I try.

Example:  my #1 player is 600 miles away.  He's in my vision and has been green lit the first 2 days; turns yellow on signing morning.  Each of the first 7 recruiting segments thereafter I either do a home visit or a campus visit.  I guarantee starting spot as sophomore-accepted.  I guarantee 50% playing time as freshman-accepted.  I spend, in total, 30% of my recruiting budget on this guy.  And lose him 1 day later.

The team that signed him was also 600 miles away.  The coach has been there 4 years.  The school is the 20th winningest program.

Same thing (different school/coach) happened last 2 seasons.  

What should I do different?

I'm no expert at recruiting, but you could try to do more than one coach visit/campus visit per cycle (or both a home visit and campus visit)

don't nickel and dime it by putting one CV or HV (actually, don't do HVs) in every cycle. Once he turns yellow, come over the top to push the other coach off. 3 - 4 - 5 CVs or more in one cycle. Also if you think enough of him to offer him freshman playing time, offer him a freshman start too.  

above all, and I've learned this lesson the hard way and still don't follow it from time to time, know when to cut your losses and find a backup. as sparsely as the worlds are populated these days you can find a similar guy for less $$.

Thanks.