Can anyone tell me the break even point in recruiting with respect to prestige vs money spent?

Here is the scenerio:

Me: new to a top 25 team vs an elite that just won the national championship
Recruit is in my 360 and not the elite.. How many more CV's approx do i need to send to win.. Money between the schools is within 15%.. his bowl money is offset to a degree by me having more scholarships to fill..

Posted by husker68144 on 2/15/2013 9:02:00 AM (view original):
Can anyone tell me the break even point in recruiting with respect to prestige vs money spent?

Here is the scenerio:

Me: new to a top 25 team vs an elite that just won the national championship
Recruit is in my 360 and not the elite.. How many more CV's approx do i need to send to win.. Money between the schools is within 15%.. his bowl money is offset to a degree by me having more scholarships to fill..

You have no way of knowing how much effort the elite has put into the kid (regardless of how much money the teams started with - also, no way of knowing how much carry over the other time might have had), so there's no way of knowing where the break even point would be.

Also given that USC (I'm guessing) has consistently been in the Top 10 and ASU just broke into the Top 25 (after usually being ranked around 40th), your chances of 'breaking even' are iffy at best.

Way back when I had AZ St I found that it was best to leave USC alone till he was done with signings.  Just the way I did it. 

I have had ASU and now have USC...I agree not wise to try to go head-to-head with USC unless its very local for ASU.

 USC is not the elite.. Oklahoma is.. THey are over 500 miles from each recruit to be specific.. currently i have spent 55k on each recruit and am trying to decide if I should dump the remaining 30,000, alittle less that I have left.. I have sent 53 CV's.. by my math on an equal basis.. Oklahoma would have to spent $70,000

Posted by husker68144 on 2/17/2013 12:42:00 AM (view original):
 USC is not the elite.. Oklahoma is.. THey are over 500 miles from each recruit to be specific.. currently i have spent 55k on each recruit and am trying to decide if I should dump the remaining 30,000, alittle less that I have left.. I have sent 53 CV's.. by my math on an equal basis.. Oklahoma would have to spent $70,000

Oklahoma just won the NC, and like USC, has been a consistent top 10 ranked school, so the prestige difference is huge.  Given that, it would be very difficult to break even (and then win the recruit). The HC is a smart recruiter, and wouldn't go after the guy unless he was pretty confident of getting him.

 "USC is not the elite.. Oklahoma is.. THey are over 500 miles from each recruit to be specific."

The point is that you've only got about a 30% advantage in distance. , so if you've sent ~$55,000, Oklahoma would have to spend ~$72,000, if everything else is even. Unfortunately, it's not even.  I don't think anyone knows the actual numbers, but I'd guess the Elite buff is at least 10% (otherwise why have it?), and prestige is  at least 10% (probably more with the NC), which brings him at best into the ~$60,000 range, assuming his buffs are pretty minimal. If they're higher than that, you could be recruiting even with him or worse, and he probably started level with you in recruiting $$$, with carry-over and that sweet NC cash. A rough guess would include the possibility that he didn't spend as much as you did on his low $$$ recruits, because people are less likely to even start a battle with an elite.

For distance to really help you at the DIA level, you need a recruit in your 180. If that was the case here, you'd have almost a 40% advantage in distance, but even then, it's tough to recruit against a coach with both a prestige and elite advantage. To win consistently against that kind of competition, you need to catch them while they're battling for more than one recruit, and you're trying to get their 2nd choice.

DISCLAIMER: This is mostly speculation and guesswork. Almost none of it's quantifiable, so I'm guessing at a lot of variables and my calculus just isn't that good , but when you take them all together, the risk/reward graph gets kinda steep.

Posted by scrodz on 2/17/2013 2:15:00 PM (view original):
 "USC is not the elite.. Oklahoma is.. THey are over 500 miles from each recruit to be specific."

The point is that you've only got about a 30% advantage in distance. , so if you've sent ~$55,000, Oklahoma would have to spend ~$72,000, if everything else is even. Unfortunately, it's not even.  I don't think anyone knows the actual numbers, but I'd guess the Elite buff is at least 10% (otherwise why have it?), and prestige is  at least 10% (probably more with the NC), which brings him at best into the ~$60,000 range, assuming his buffs are pretty minimal. If they're higher than that, you could be recruiting even with him or worse, and he probably started level with you in recruiting $$$, with carry-over and that sweet NC cash. A rough guess would include the possibility that he didn't spend as much as you did on his low $$$ recruits, because people are less likely to even start a battle with an elite.

For distance to really help you at the DIA level, you need a recruit in your 180. If that was the case here, you'd have almost a 40% advantage in distance, but even then, it's tough to recruit against a coach with both a prestige and elite advantage. To win consistently against that kind of competition, you need to catch them while they're battling for more than one recruit, and you're trying to get their 2nd choice.

DISCLAIMER: This is mostly speculation and guesswork. Almost none of it's quantifiable, so I'm guessing at a lot of variables and my calculus just isn't that good , but when you take them all together, the risk/reward graph gets kinda steep.

I thought I had read the elite buff was +20%. The rest, I would agree with (as a rough estimate). I think there is a real chance at this point he is recruiting even. I think dumping the final $30K gets you less value than pocketing and trying for a D1aa back up option.