Does everyone seem to have more success with balanced classes or a class of 5 or 6.

There are many ways to skin a cat.

In D2/D3, I vastly prefer balanced classes. I like being strong/competitive every season. I think that's by far the best way to build a D2/D3 dynasty. That said, plenty of people have done it with big/small classes. You can be very, very good for a season or two, but the tradeoff is you will take a big hit afterwards.

In low/mid DI, I think you can make a much more persuasive case for big classes, since having a bunch of high iq guys can help level the playing field against more experienced BCS opponents.

You'll find that with much of HD strategy, there are many different approaches that can yield success, and certainly no singular right or wrong approach.

You can also try a mixture approach.  Do something like a 5/1/5/1 setup, where the peaks and valleys won't be quite as extreme as when you have back to back big classes.

As girt said...many ways to skin a cat.  Basically, as long as you stick to your game plan, any strategy can be successful. 

I trying to set up a 6/0/6/0 rotation with one of my schools, a D II school (although I think it might work best at D I). This way we get tourney carryover 100% on the 0 yrs and get to add it to the 6 scholies worth every other season. Plus, our "worst" seasons roster wise will still have 6 juniors.

its not fun for me unless i can compete every year

Posted by aejones on 8/21/2011 6:01:00 PM (view original):
its not fun for me unless i can compete every year

+100000000

Posted by aejones on 8/21/2011 6:01:00 PM (view original):
its not fun for me unless i can compete every year

Completely agreed. Plus, recruiting is the most fun part of the game, and not to be able to recruit half the seasons sounds awful to me. (And doing something like 6/0/6/0 just has the feel to me of gaming the system -- totally legal, just rubs me the wrong way a bit.)

myself, I prefer the 4/2/4/2 method if I can stick to it, but it's harder than you think. Sometimes you end up going 4/2/3/3 or 4/3/3/2 because the guy like and the guy that meets your recruiting requirements is in a different class.

Posted by courtmagic on 8/21/2011 7:42:00 PM (view original):
myself, I prefer the 4/2/4/2 method if I can stick to it, but it's harder than you think. Sometimes you end up going 4/2/3/3 or 4/3/3/2 because the guy like and the guy that meets your recruiting requirements is in a different class.

Redshirts mess it up, too, especially if you have a season where noone will accept the redshirt

I tend to let the recruits generated near me - the money I have - and my teams needs - decide the question of how many I can recruit. If the gettins good then I try to get. It's hard enough building a good team without putting self imposed limits on myself. Though, I am one to experiment with weird stuff like an "all free throw shooting" team. 

I try to redshirt at least one player when I have big classes. If someone is not going to get much to any playing time, then why waste a year, redshirt him for development.

One thing to point out is your conf matters in this decision. If you have a full human conf, going for a big class is not good, as in the off year where you have 6 FR, you are guaranteed to lose most, if not all, of your conf games. This will kill your prestige. If you have an empty conf, you could very well go 0-0-6-6 structure and make the NT every season, and maintain A+ prestige. 

if you go in to a recruiting season with a # of players in mind, and exactly what positions you need, you are setting yourself up to fail. 

be one with recruiting.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 8/22/2011 12:12:00 AM (view original):
One thing to point out is your conf matters in this decision. If you have a full human conf, going for a big class is not good, as in the off year where you have 6 FR, you are guaranteed to lose most, if not all, of your conf games. This will kill your prestige. If you have an empty conf, you could very well go 0-0-6-6 structure and make the NT every season, and maintain A+ prestige. 

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree here.  For example, in season 23 of Smith, I managed to take D2 Colorado Springs to the NT Championship game with six freshmen on the roster.  Finished that season 30-5.  Point is, you're certainly not guaranteed to lose all, or even most, of your games with that kind of class setup.  Just have to schedule accordingly to match the experience of your team.

Posted by salag on 8/21/2011 11:42:00 PM (view original):
I try to redshirt at least one player when I have big classes. If someone is not going to get much to any playing time, then why waste a year, redshirt him for development.

There's also the fact that redshirted players become more usable as freshmen after the RS year, simply because their IQ is higher.  This translates into more playing time (generally), and better development by the time they're seniors.  You might only see 20 or so points of improvement during the redshirt  year, but once he starts playing the gains will be more dramatic.

I have a junior PF right now who came in as a 470-something overall rating.  He redshirted willingly, was my leading scorer as a soph and was just named as a 3rd team D2 All-American as a junior. 

Redshirting does mess up class balance a bit, but IMO it's more than worth it.