Huh. I thought all the junior colleges were in Kansas or Mississippi. 

During my stint in Southern Cal in Smith I found recruiting to be jokingly easy for most of it. On paper, a lot of my best teams were built from there even while only halfheartedly recruiting.

If all works out well, Colorado seems like it would be the easiest DIII job. But yes, it really does depend on the human population in DII.

Florida seems less dependent on that from outside observation. It's tough to imagine a situation where Fl isn't easy, outside of hacking into the servers and making sure no talent is generated there.

I'm guessing being in SoCal is great when there are one or two humans in the LA-area schools and pretty tough when there are seven humans in LA-area schools. And I'm guessing you're right about Colorado--ten humans in the RMAC is probably the issue with me. Why do you figure Florida is less dependent on that? Just because there are more D2 schools in Florida and little chance they're all full? 

Because there is a larger pool of recruits in FL than CO, and when you need more it's a lot easier to scout and take recruits at distance from GA/SC/NC etc. than it is to go into Texas and Cal.

And when I was in SoCal two of the best conferences in the world were SoCal and the Northwest - still extremely easy.

Posted by tarvolon on 3/6/2014 12:19:00 PM (view original):
I'm guessing being in SoCal is great when there are one or two humans in the LA-area schools and pretty tough when there are seven humans in LA-area schools. And I'm guessing you're right about Colorado--ten humans in the RMAC is probably the issue with me. Why do you figure Florida is less dependent on that? Just because there are more D2 schools in Florida and little chance they're all full? 

I am finding recruiting in So Cal pretty hard in D3.


For my Redlands team in Wooden  there are only 54 d3 recruits within 400 miles. There are 48 d2 recruits.

For a comparison, my NYU team in Knight  529 D3 recruits and 150 D2.

Sure there is less competition but there isn't 7 times less competition!

To be successful in the SoCal conference you have got be comfortable with the idea of going 800+ miles away for a recruit. Schools are so scattered out there that it's actually easy to do so. That's what I did in my time there, of course it's difficult to pull guys that from that distance with a D3 budget but if you can get a couple of guys for very cheap it's doable.

I am comfortable with that:

Allen Jozwiak	JUCO KS	Trentonjoe
Travis Gregory	JUCO AZ	Trentonjoe
David Martone	Playa Del Rey, CA	Trentonjoe
Roger Ayon	La Verne, CA	Trentonjoe
Kenneth Babb	Stayton, OR	Trentonjoe
Dale Morgan	Salina, KS	Trentonjoe
Robert Mera	New Laguna, NM	Trentonjoe
Alex Wells	Malvern, AR	Trentonjoe
Timothy Humphries	Petersburg, AK	Trentonjoe
Justin Levering	Honolulu, HI	Trentonjoe
Henry Ireland	La Canada, CA	Trentonjoe		Restore Eligibility
George Rozek	Petersburg, AK	Trentonjoe

I guess I just am not good at it!

Posted by tarvolon on 3/6/2014 10:35:00 AM (view original):
Gets completely oversold. Unless Colorado College in Phelan is just not in as good a spot as Colorado in any other world, for whatever reason. 

I'll admit it's not the hardest place I've ever recruited from, but it's not the easiest either. I always heard that there were a ton of drop-downs available, and that Colorado was in position to get a large number of them, because no other schools were in proximity. In five seasons there, I've only signed two drop/pulldowns. That's less than the number of targets on my D3 list that got snatched by higher-level programs. 

This season, there was an awesome SF on my D3 list. I grabbed him right away. The next morning, he was being fought over by a D2 school and a friggin' D1 school. But there was another pretty solid SF on my D3 list, and he was still not considering anyone, so I quickly got him considering me. The next cycle, yet another D2 school had taken him from me. 

This isn't me fighting D2 schools on pulldowns, this is them coming to fight me on D3 recruits. I admit, this is the first time I've ever had a D1 school take a four-year player from my D3 list. Have seen it with one-year transfers before, but not four-year guys. 

This is not me complaining about the D2 schools cheating or having it out for me or something. If there's a D3 player they like better than the D2 players, it's in their best interests to try and sign him. And it's not me complaining about a terrible recruiting class, because I think I mostly salvaged it. I'm just noticing that this place had a lot of advertised advantages that don't seem to be real. Not only is it very difficult to recruit a drop/pulldown, I have to compete with D2 schools on the D3 recruits. 

Just an observation. Anyone who's coached Colorado in other worlds noticed something similar, or is this just me? 

For what it's worth, being the d2 school involved in this...

That guy was good. Really good. I felt bad going after him as he would have been phenomenal at D3...but then I felt less bad when the D1 guy grabbed him. Pretty early on I was in battles...so because I thought there was a solid chance I'd want him, I recruited him really as early as I could to let you know, hey, I'm interested and you probably can't get this guy. I wanted a couple of cheap options and I thought him to be one.

I'm guessing that Phelan is probably the worst world for coaching D3 Colorado. We (RMAC) are year in year out the second best conference in D2, and as of this year including Northern Colorado...you are talking about 10-11 humans in D2 Colorado...there just can't be much that is going to fall through the cracks. 

Apologies for the redundancies. I hadn't read much of the thread before posting. 

Certainly not complaining that you had done anything wrong, thinair. Obviously would've rather you and Wichita State not have swooped in, but it was well within your right to do so, and it was almost certainly in the best interests of your team. I was hoping with him being on my D3 list and being ineligible, there might be a chance that he flew under the upper-division radar, but that didn't happen. Was a little more irked when I went after another undecided guy on the second day of recruiting and had another RMAC school swoop in a cycle later, but I don't expect any ill will, sometimes you have to start battles on the second day, especially when you're in a position where you can win. 

Was just observing that Colorado didn't seem as favorable as advertised, which I guess is, as you noted, because of the strong RMAC. The good D2 players get picked over quickly, and it ends with even some good D3 players getting picked over. 

Fortunately for me, this particular case caused me to do some nationwide scouting after signings ended, and I found a guy who I cannot believe had gone unsigned. I'm not sure if he's as good as Girard, but I would've signed him without hesitation to a D2 team. Hopefully I can keep finding treasures elsewhere, because as you said, not much is slipping through the RMAC cracks. 

That Wichita State coach grabbed my #1 recruit immediately. Was shocked when I saw him come up on Girard. You aren't the first person to think that the Colorado "myth" was a bit over-hyped. I considered going from D1 to Colorado over in Tark but ultimately decided not too after hearing another talk about it being overrated. 

It's a breath of fresh air to hear a coach not blaming anyone for their misfortune. I truly hope we don't bump into each other again. I will say that with as many good coaches that there are in the RMAC (not bragging personally but rather talking about Chew, Slick, Grill etc...) I am surprised that you are bumping into us. I think Girard was an exception, but in theory, I'm sure most of us are looking for D1 drop downs than messing with the D3 power that is you. Best of luck. I'm going to have my worst team at Western EVER. A couple of mediocre recruitings seasons and boom...going to be a long *** season!