exactly like wronoj says... distance doesn't stop cheating (and you can so easily not reveal your alt IDs and circumvent distance restrictions - why penalize those who make the effort to be open and honest about the situation?). even for FSS scouting, i usually scout my local area on every single team, but then its almost random where i pick to scout elsewhere. well, not random, i mean its based on who looks good who is unscouted combined with some areas ive had success, and where i dont know of a great local coach who would already have grabbed any gems. but effectively, that could be anywhere. if i used my scouting data from d1 teams for d2 or d3 teams, it really doesnt matter at all where that d1 team was, it would be a significant advantage.
all that stops the coaches who dont cheat is morals, or the appreciation of strategy games, or whatever, not some flimsy WIS rules that are rarely enforced anyway. they only do something if someone complains. and usually, people only complain if its like, too close, or same conference (some people have had teams in the same conference forever though without incident, i know of some right now in fact, but i wouldn't reveal them, because i know them to be upstanding guys and dont want to risk someone ******** stupidly) - or the big one - someone is doing some shady **** and you dont want them doing it near you. when i picked up d1 colorado and built it into a power house, 6 seasons into my d1 career, and a couple seasons later when i went to texas a&m - i was BLOWN AWAY by the number of people who asked me for recruiting info - it was easily a half dozen in that many months. so really, my concern for cheating is much more about recruiting shadiness between unknown parties than decent individuals cheating with themselves - which is usually pretty obvious. strangely, by the time i got to kentucky, only 1 coach asked me to collude - maybe the colluders have a network, and say who to approach and who not to, but i like to think thats just crazy conspiracy theory. or maybe i was just winning too many titles at once and people were afraid of me at coloardo/a&m - it was always people asking who i wanted, so they could look elsewhere, not making trades. when i got to UK, it became instantly apparent how far from a great d1 recruiter was, so maybe nobody (well, just 1 guy did, but thats it) felt it was even worth trying to avoid me anymore. i think thats a lot more plausible than the colluder network theory :)
12/11/2012 10:34 AM (edited)