Hey everyone. A while back I decided to take over Temple in Bryant, which has a comical distribution of scholarships over a 4 year period. I figured the only logical thing to do was to make it even more out of wack. My goal is/was to make it a 41-3-3-3 breakdown. It only took some minor tweaking to make this happen. I took the team over with the large recruiting season class in their senior year. Of the available scholarships, I only filled 4 of them, redshirting 3 that year, and I am redshirting the other guy from that class this season. This will get me to the scholarship structure that I am looking for. Now before I go any further, 1. I am aware that doing this at the D1 level is silly and probably a waste of money. To me, it's a lot of fun. I am not expecting much to come out of it. 2. While doing this, I am not trying to do this as an excuse to push around an elite or other schools around me because I got picked on in middle school. Every decision I make on battles and recruits is based on what I think is best for my recruiting class. That means not getting into battles I may be able to win for a guy I really want, if that battle will take a really big chunk out of my cash reserves, but rather building a team that fits my offense and defense that can possibly contend for a CC in my junior/senior seasons.
With Temple I made the decision to run just 1 offense and 2 defenses. For offense I am running the pro set offense. For defense I am running a 3-4/nickel defense. I chose the 3-4 only because everyone around me recruiting wise runs a 4-3 for the most part. (BTW if anyone has any tips on the 3/4, let me know. I have never ran it. oops). The four players that I recruited in the previous season (my first at Temple) and redshirted are QB (#27 per GUESS), RB (#12), OL (#52), and DL (#40). Redshirted the QB, RB, and DL in my last season. Will be redshirting the OL this season.
One tough part of recruiting an entire starting lineup during one season is that even in a rich recruiting area like the northeast, there are still going to be positions that are not going to have enough players to fulfill the needs of all of the schools. DL was terrible depth this recruiting cycle, which made it a lucky stroke that I went with 3-4 and recruited a DL to redshirt the previous season. One really nice part of having this large class is that it is during a year that none of the other BCS/Elite schools really have a large class. Largest class in my neck of the woods is probably Rutgers at 12. All classes around me are between 9-12 recruits except for Navy which is at 14. Makes it a touch easier to go after the guys that you want.
After looking at the recruits available going into recruiting season (which to be honest was kind of a weak haul available for what I have seen in the northeast before) I figured that there were 4 recruits that I decided I needed to try to get my hands on.
RB - Benjamin Morris (80.12 GUESS) My fav RB in my 180. I like having 2 strong RB's.
WR - John Lopez (76.64 GUESS) By far the best WR in my 360. Not in anyones 180. Need one beast WR
DB - John Diaz (71.50 GUESS) Best DB in my 180. With people passing more, I try to prioritize DB.
DL - Jeff Osborne (79.84 GUESS) The best of a bad situation at DL. Only 5 are over 75 GUESS in my 360
Of these four recruits, I got 3 of them. Was able to get RB Morris after a lively battle with Syracuse. He was in my 180 and out of the 180 of Cuse so I had about a 20% recruiting advantage. Got WR Lopez after a battle with tribewriter and his powerhouse Boston College team. He was in quite a few battles with UCONN so I was able to get the WR. For whatever reason I was able to get DB Diaz uncontested. (got the top 3 DB's in my 180). I was not able to get my hands on DL Osborne as Penn State wanted him and since no one else was in a big battle with PSU, I did not want to have to invest over 100k to try to get my guy. Instead I went long distance and got two defensive linemen (one from Minnesota, one from Maine). Since I am playing a 3-4, Im not too hurt by this.
As far as the rest of my recruiting I did make a couple missteps in the early going. It was Memorial day weekend, so I was out with friends when recruiting began and not the soberest I have ever been so I was a bit on the aggressive side. Probably cost me a couple of bucks as I was not efficient with my cash. Once I was settled down for the 9pm EST recruiting cycle I was able to steer the ship in a less tipsy manner. Hopefully next time, this doesnt fall on a holiday weekend. The rest was pretty uneventful for the most part. I was able to fill all of the scholarships that I had available and on signing day, I only had 4 recruiting battles that I was interested in winning ( I went 4-0 in those battles. None can really be described as the big battle variety). In fact, I ended up finishing with a decent amount of leftover cash. I kinda wish I picked one more battle. O well. Posted below is the GUESS Rank and score of what will be my starting lineup once next season (Im gonna include my OL that I will be redshirting this season as a sophomore as he will be starting each of the next 3 seasons). a * means that they were redshirted. The GUESS score is what it currently is after the redshirt year.
QB27* (64.92)
RB5 (80.12)
RB12* (79.37)
WR7 (76.64)
WR18 (74.86)
TE3 (76.97)
OL52* (79.80)
OL20 (79.15)
OL24 (79.01)
OL50 (77.33)
OL63 (76.67)
DL40* (77.64)
DL41 (75.82)
DL53 (75.02)
DL63 (74.00) (Nickel DL)
LB21 (71.61)
LB25 (71.16)
LB39 (70.54)
LB48 (69.64)
DB11 (71.50)
DB18 (70.52)
DB32 (68.18)
DB69 (65.96)
DB70 (65.90)
P8 (62.78)
K5 (65.97)
So, I know that there are still two days from the finish of recruiting in Bryant, but I am done so I figured I would post this now. What do you think? Did my team turn out ok? If you have any advice on what you would do differently please let me know as I am for the most part not that good at this game and would always like to get better. I remember seeing these posted back in the day when the forums were active so I figured I would try one just to see how it goes. Thanks for your time.
6/4/2016 8:10 AM (edited)