Ok lets say I scout a guy a dozen times and I still havent been able to pull him down. Does this mean I will get credit for the effort and he will drop to me sooner? Or is it all or nothing. Either I pull him or he drops and your scouting visits mean nothing if you cant pull him down? Me, jpmills, and jdno have been discussing this on our board! Thanks in advance!

Do you mean if its going to take 20 ST to pull him down, and you do 10, do you lose credit for those and have to do another 20? If that's what you're asking I'm almost positive the answer is no. I'm pretty sure in that case you could do 10 and 10 in different cycles and get the pull down.

If you're asking if those ST count toward your overall recruitment effort on the player, I would assume they do, but I don't have any factual evidence to back that up.

I think, that it's all or nothing.  If the guy needs 20 ST to pull him down he won't drop down faster if you only send 19.   There were a couple guys that I half assed tried to pull down for my DII team in Tark and they always seemed to drop down to the teams that had a slightly higher prestege than I did faster.

The ST do have some recruiting value.   I remember one time I had a guy sign with me who dropped down.   I think I sent 2 HV's and the other school said they only sent a CV but I had 10 or so ST's in before he dropped down.  I think.   I can't remember the team or player anymore, it was 10+ seasons ago.

Interesting question.  My impression is that pulldowns and dropdowns are separate.  So if it will take X for the player to drop to you, then sending him 5 SVs won't impact the timing of that at all.  That's how I think it works anyway.

Now I will say I've noticed that it takes fewer SVs to pull down as recruiting goes on.  Of course you could explain that by saying the SVs interacted with the dropdown logic and made him drop sooner..and you didn't really pull him down at all.  I lean towards the former, but don't know for sure.

Also really interested in people's thoughts on SVs and recruiting value.  I had a discussion with another coach recently where he had heard pulldown SVs didn't have any recruiting "value" in terms of a battle.  I'd never considered that and not sure I really agree.

Interesting thoughts here and thank you guys. And I do agree with you guys as far as dropdown and pulldown effort being separate. Although I think that it would be justified for a guy to drop to you faster if you did put in the effort and werent able to pull him down. batman I think that a SV has to have some value in a battle. The exact value Im not sure but I would have to assume that it has to be good for something!

good thread, good questions. several points - kind of working back to front.

for starters - killbatman - i could be wrong, but i think the coach you were talking to was actually misquoting me. there was a thread a while back discussing the value of SVs, and i explained that the community perception on the value of SVs is way off - generally, people think they are worth a lot less than they are. in truth, about 2.5-3 SVs are equal to about 1 HV - but that is generally speaking. i went on to explain that the reason I think the community is so far off in their perception of SVs (people have guessed 5:1-10:1, even great coaches have pushed 10:1), is because of pulldowns. you used to be able to pull players down easily, and my belief was that when old admin changed that, he put an artificial reduction in place, for any effort going from schools to players yet to drop to them. i think i estimated that at around 5x... anyway, because of this, i think coaches feel SVs are not worth a lot - you do all these SVs, a player drops, still isnt considering you - they must not be worth anything! but no - they are-  its just artificially reduced - same with calls/letters to pulldown players. it actually goes further than a simple ~5x reduction - the reduction appears to be higher with multiple teams going after a player, although im not sure how that works.

anyway, there was some skepticism, so someone sent a ticket and seble confirmed my theory. so, i think the coach you were talking to must have seen that, but got it wrong, there is recruiting value from SVs, its just seriously diminished.

now, back to the main question. when you try to pull a guy down, and dont, that has no impact on when he drops to you. he wont drop any faster because you were needed to do 14 SVs and only did 13SVs. however, the effort you have done does count towards getting considered (and in battles and anything else). its just that the effort you put in to get them to drop, just wasn't worth much.

Yeah I guess I missed that thread, but 3:1 for SV:HV has been my assumption for a while.  Reducing their value for pulldowns does make some sense.

Related question, suppose it will take 8 SVs to pull down the player and I send 10 SVs at once in the same cycle.  I assume it would separate those out, right?  So the 8 to pull him down would get reduced value, and the two extras would count normally.  Does that sound right?  If no, would the answer be different if I sent them in two different actions in the same cycle (e.g. 8 SVs, then 2 SVs)?

coach, I think I may be that someone you referred to. Here's the exchange from Ticket #112783.

7/2/2012 7:00 PM	zbrent716
Is the Recruiting Value of a Scouting Trip lessened for players that you are trying to "pull down" to your level? That is, for a D3 team, will 5 Scouting Trips to a normal D3 player (no pull-down needed) earn more Recruiting Value than 5 Scouting Trips to a potential pull-down (someone who responded to first contact with a "backup" message)?
7/5/2012 11:33 AM	Customer Support
Yes, you'll get less credit if the player considers you a "backup" option.

killbatman - no, and no. he wont drop to you until the end of the cycle processing, anything you do is going to be at the reduced rate.

thanks zbrent, thats what i was talking about

frig I neva knew that!!

Very, very, very good info :)