I'm about to start recruiting in my first D3 year.

I have two seniors, and plan to cut one or two players. Can I sign three recruits in the early signing period? Or do I have to sign just two and then cut one in period 2 and sign that replacement?

Did my question make sense?

Welcome!

So theoretically you *could* sign the number of players you have openings (2, it appears) in the first session. And yes you would then need to wait until you can cut players after the season, when you’ll have open scholarships and be eligible to sign more players. HOWEVER, at D3 signing players early is not usually advisable. The reason is that you’d have to be signing D3 pool players, and most of your human competitors will be recruiting players from D2 and D1 pools. D3 pool players are best left to sims.

If you’ve already used your scouting funds for the year, and didn’t scout D2 or D1 pools, you can perhaps find a usable D3 pool player to sign, but I would think about waiting until the second session, cut a player or 3, then use that extra stash to scout again, but focus on higher levels. Here’s how I recommend scouting at D3. For use in the second session, and next year and beyond. As you’ll see in the thread, other folks find other ways to be successful, but especially as you’re learning the game, I recommend starting with this, getting the biggest pool of level 4 players you can get, and then tweaking from there to fit your style and preferences as you get experience with the game.

Also, in case you weren’t aware, at D3, you will need to wait until the first cycle of the late session before any D2 pool players will begin to sign with you, even those listed as early or end of period 1. And for D1 pool players, it’s the last 24 hours of the late session before they’ll sign with you. So if you were planning on recruiting those types of players, be prepared to wait until late session anyway.

Interesting. Did not know that. I was planning to go after some D2 guys for sure.

To be clear, you want to start recruiting those D2 players right away (provided you’ve scouted them), with attention and scholarships and promises, but you won’t move past moderate, and they can’t sign with you until those designated periods. General wisdom says that as a D3 you usually want to wait until the player can sign with you, or at least nearly so, before you spend your limited dollars on visits for higher level players, because it’s very easy for D2 teams do drop in fast and sign the player without much fight. There will be some instances where early visits might make sense, to fend off sims, but be careful with that.

Is it possible for a D3 human led school to put in enough effort to knock off a D1 or D2 sim school from a recruit or is that just a waste of resources?

Posted by jdbhamilt on 3/26/2022 9:55:00 PM (view original):
Is it possible for a D3 human led school to put in enough effort to knock off a D1 or D2 sim school from a recruit or is that just a waste of resources?

for sure. you have to do it early though. the longer you wait, the more effort you have to put in to knock them off.

I looked at Recruiting Period 2. When can guys start signing there? I’m in Naismith and I see that it starts at 8 AM on April 14, but attention points don’t process until 5 PM. Can guys start signing at 8 AM, or does it not really process until 5 PM?

Thank you for telling me that the D2 guys won’t sign until period 2. I’d be wondering what I had to do to get some of these guys to prefer me more than moderate. Instead I just keep on plugging with them and hope it makes a difference during session 2.

The D2 players won't sign until the 5 pm processing or later. However, if you're going after any D1 players, a D3 school cannot sign D1 players until the last day of session 2.

Since I can’t go over “Moderate” in this period with DII, am I wasting a campus visit on these guys or do I get that credit when I can sign them?

You get the credit for your recruiting efforts at the time you perform them (when they are processed). All you can't do until you are released from the red light (being held at Moderate) is sign the guy.

No- my question is. If he would go to “Very High” with a campus visit when he was signable, does it make sense to do a campus visit when he can’t go higher than “moderate”?

Or am I overthinking this?

I don’t want to waste the money on a campus visit if I don’t get maximum credit for it.

Ok so if you do the campus visit now, you would get maximum credit for it, but this would not be visible to you until he is signable because you are being capped as appearing at moderate until you are able to sign. This cap affects your ability to sign the guy but not your ability to put/get recruiting credit on the guy.

However, I would really consider holding off on doing any campus visits until a player will be signable because your recruiting money is so small, so scarce, so valuable, at D3, that it would be tragic to (mis)use it on a player that ends up being taken by a D1/D2 school. The only exception would be to knock down sims and even then it's tricky and risky and probably unnecessary because there should be plenty of players that will improve your squad and not potentially be a waste of resources.

do you get more money for recruiting when you cut someone?