Posted by gillispie1 on 7/6/2020 11:02:00 AM (view original):

Posted by mullycj on 7/6/2020 10:22:00 AM (view original):
Creating an issue where there really isn't a problem. If a team wants to risk a low seed and tougher NT games and higher risk of getting knocked out so be it.

Most coaches can't afford to throw away regular season games.

therein lies the problem (although i definitely do this myself the whole way up the d1 stack). i agree that a borderline top 25 team working their way up the prestige stack can't really afford promises on a mass scale, like if they have a 5 man class and promise all 5, it could really hurt them. they can (and should) promise in their key battles though. but for guys like piman or me? its not even a hesitation. some a+ program coach recently asked about if they could meet their 6 promised freshman by rotating them in and out. our a+s are secure, we are only playing for the post season, and it just makes it that much harder for other teams to keep up. its not like piman's seeding hit is the norm either he takes it to the extreme, running 5 fr and a tough schedule and the like. normally its a minimal to negligible hit, like at ucla, we are in line for the 2nd 1 seed starting 3fr and 2so, which is still pretty young. we got a 4 at delaware state recently running 5 true freshman which is kind of a hit but its not like that was a 1 seed caliber team, either. they lost in the 2nd round.

the whole point of having a promise system, in my understanding, was to give the smaller schools an advantage. feels to me like its the opposite. the big schools have no reason not to do this every year and so many of us do. the peasant schools can do it because their teams are trash anyway, but the guys in the middle? they have a real decision to make. if that is the system - one more advantage for the big dogs - wtf is the point?

tfp is that the big dog has to give something up to have reliable access to that caliber recruit. There might potentially be a more intelligent way to accomplish that, but the answer can’t just be “eliminate this feature because I’m often going to get what I want anyway, and this just annoys me.” Even if the price you pay for having to max promises on an elite player is just annoyance (it isn’t, but even if that was true), that’s still a price, and it’s better than just letting you have him.

Maybe just scale it down to two promises that can be offered instead of five (start, 10 min, 15, 20, and 25). Maybe the two options could be “start+25 min” and simple “15 min”. I have always thought (going back to the single-digit season I played WAY back when) offering a start should mean they are also top tier in depth chart.

Again, I know I’m not in on how this is used or affects the game (soon hopefully), but I think an outside opinion can be valuable. Thanks all!

Posted by shoe3 on 7/6/2020 11:31:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 7/6/2020 11:02:00 AM (view original):

Posted by mullycj on 7/6/2020 10:22:00 AM (view original):
Creating an issue where there really isn't a problem. If a team wants to risk a low seed and tougher NT games and higher risk of getting knocked out so be it.

Most coaches can't afford to throw away regular season games.

therein lies the problem (although i definitely do this myself the whole way up the d1 stack). i agree that a borderline top 25 team working their way up the prestige stack can't really afford promises on a mass scale, like if they have a 5 man class and promise all 5, it could really hurt them. they can (and should) promise in their key battles though. but for guys like piman or me? its not even a hesitation. some a+ program coach recently asked about if they could meet their 6 promised freshman by rotating them in and out. our a+s are secure, we are only playing for the post season, and it just makes it that much harder for other teams to keep up. its not like piman's seeding hit is the norm either he takes it to the extreme, running 5 fr and a tough schedule and the like. normally its a minimal to negligible hit, like at ucla, we are in line for the 2nd 1 seed starting 3fr and 2so, which is still pretty young. we got a 4 at delaware state recently running 5 true freshman which is kind of a hit but its not like that was a 1 seed caliber team, either. they lost in the 2nd round.

the whole point of having a promise system, in my understanding, was to give the smaller schools an advantage. feels to me like its the opposite. the big schools have no reason not to do this every year and so many of us do. the peasant schools can do it because their teams are trash anyway, but the guys in the middle? they have a real decision to make. if that is the system - one more advantage for the big dogs - wtf is the point?

tfp is that the big dog has to give something up to have reliable access to that caliber recruit. There might potentially be a more intelligent way to accomplish that, but the answer can’t just be “eliminate this feature because I’m often going to get what I want anyway, and this just annoys me.” Even if the price you pay for having to max promises on an elite player is just annoyance (it isn’t, but even if that was true), that’s still a price, and it’s better than just letting you have him.

its barely even an annoyance for me - so i do think that is accurate - i don't give up **** to use promises. case in point, i ran all freshman for all of 2.0 without promises anyway, because its better for player development - but i would swap in real lineups for key sections of non conf if i felt like it, to have some real games. and its not that i am paying annoyance to break even - its either a wash, or an advantage, for people like me, the current promise system. there's no other way to read it honestly. i typically get 1-3 seeds with heavy freshman lineups, and i've never lost a title i thought i should win over seeding, so its really a total non-issue for me in real terms. the thing that annoys me is it is nearly impossible to play real games in the regular season now because neither myself nor anyone worth playing is playing a real team, but i also spend exactly 0 seconds coaching the regular season at least 50% of the time, so this is a very small issue personally, that 50% just increases to closer to 100%, which it already is because i co-coach with chap and he is way more disciplined than me about actually doing stuff. anyway, my objections are almost purely systemic.

i see a ton of posts, here on the forums but also in CCs, about promises and their effect on teams, about guys leaving at 22/26 starts, about folks lamenting their regular season is messed up from promises... and i see the regular season result where half of the best teams are 4-8 seeds which is absurd and significantly higher than in 2.0... and i just wonder, what is all this for? so i can have this measly little advantage over clueless people i would destroy anyway? the promises clearly impacts regular folks, while guys like piman and myself are largely above the fray, so again, its not about us. i just... i still am searching for a single, solitary benefit of this system, to give all the confusion and degradation of the regular season, some meaning.

Posted by gillispie1 on 7/6/2020 12:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 7/6/2020 11:31:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 7/6/2020 11:02:00 AM (view original):

Posted by mullycj on 7/6/2020 10:22:00 AM (view original):
Creating an issue where there really isn't a problem. If a team wants to risk a low seed and tougher NT games and higher risk of getting knocked out so be it.

Most coaches can't afford to throw away regular season games.

therein lies the problem (although i definitely do this myself the whole way up the d1 stack). i agree that a borderline top 25 team working their way up the prestige stack can't really afford promises on a mass scale, like if they have a 5 man class and promise all 5, it could really hurt them. they can (and should) promise in their key battles though. but for guys like piman or me? its not even a hesitation. some a+ program coach recently asked about if they could meet their 6 promised freshman by rotating them in and out. our a+s are secure, we are only playing for the post season, and it just makes it that much harder for other teams to keep up. its not like piman's seeding hit is the norm either he takes it to the extreme, running 5 fr and a tough schedule and the like. normally its a minimal to negligible hit, like at ucla, we are in line for the 2nd 1 seed starting 3fr and 2so, which is still pretty young. we got a 4 at delaware state recently running 5 true freshman which is kind of a hit but its not like that was a 1 seed caliber team, either. they lost in the 2nd round.

the whole point of having a promise system, in my understanding, was to give the smaller schools an advantage. feels to me like its the opposite. the big schools have no reason not to do this every year and so many of us do. the peasant schools can do it because their teams are trash anyway, but the guys in the middle? they have a real decision to make. if that is the system - one more advantage for the big dogs - wtf is the point?

tfp is that the big dog has to give something up to have reliable access to that caliber recruit. There might potentially be a more intelligent way to accomplish that, but the answer can’t just be “eliminate this feature because I’m often going to get what I want anyway, and this just annoys me.” Even if the price you pay for having to max promises on an elite player is just annoyance (it isn’t, but even if that was true), that’s still a price, and it’s better than just letting you have him.

its barely even an annoyance for me - so i do think that is accurate - i don't give up **** to use promises. case in point, i ran all freshman for all of 2.0 without promises anyway, because its better for player development - but i would swap in real lineups for key sections of non conf if i felt like it, to have some real games. and its not that i am paying annoyance to break even - its either a wash, or an advantage, for people like me, the current promise system. there's no other way to read it honestly. i typically get 1-3 seeds with heavy freshman lineups, and i've never lost a title i thought i should win over seeding, so its really a total non-issue for me in real terms. the thing that annoys me is it is nearly impossible to play real games in the regular season now because neither myself nor anyone worth playing is playing a real team, but i also spend exactly 0 seconds coaching the regular season at least 50% of the time, so this is a very small issue personally, that 50% just increases to closer to 100%, which it already is because i co-coach with chap and he is way more disciplined than me about actually doing stuff. anyway, my objections are almost purely systemic.

i see a ton of posts, here on the forums but also in CCs, about promises and their effect on teams, about guys leaving at 22/26 starts, about folks lamenting their regular season is messed up from promises... and i see the regular season result where half of the best teams are 4-8 seeds which is absurd and significantly higher than in 2.0... and i just wonder, what is all this for? so i can have this measly little advantage over clueless people i would destroy anyway? the promises clearly impacts regular folks, while guys like piman and myself are largely above the fray, so again, its not about us. i just... i still am searching for a single, solitary benefit of this system, to give all the confusion and degradation of the regular season, some meaning.

with this 100%. seeding is ridiculously overrated anyways for any single team considering 6 seeds and 3 seeds are generally of very similar quality.

Also, if you really feel your seeding is being hurt by starting freshmen, I recommend you find 10 good sims and schedule them on the road. Works ridiculously well.

If you come up with an intelligent way to maintain playing time preferences as a way to mitigate recruiting advantages “top dogs” have over other schools without narrowing the window within which a non “top dog” school can legitimately challenge for a recruit without promises, I’m all ears. So far, I’ve heard nothing worth consideration.

Coaches make gameplay choices, and if they don’t feel the difference between a 3 and an 8 seed is worth it, they don’t mind trying to honor more than a promise or maybe two per year. It’s not the system. People just think they “have to” play the game in a certain way to “optimize” based on their understanding of how it all works. In reality, there are a whole bunch of good ways to play, and some of them don’t involve promises at all. Reducing the gameplay choices available, and reducing the prestige window for challenging recruits are both non-starters.

Posted by shoe3 on 7/6/2020 5:26:00 PM (view original):
If you come up with an intelligent way to maintain playing time preferences as a way to mitigate recruiting advantages “top dogs” have over other schools without narrowing the window within which a non “top dog” school can legitimately challenge for a recruit without promises, I’m all ears. So far, I’ve heard nothing worth consideration.

Coaches make gameplay choices, and if they don’t feel the difference between a 3 and an 8 seed is worth it, they don’t mind trying to honor more than a promise or maybe two per year. It’s not the system. People just think they “have to” play the game in a certain way to “optimize” based on their understanding of how it all works. In reality, there are a whole bunch of good ways to play, and some of them don’t involve promises at all. Reducing the gameplay choices available, and reducing the prestige window for challenging recruits are both non-starters.

i reject the idea the promise system is helping the little guys, in fact i think it is the opposite, so i think that means we just will always disagree about conclusions.

perhaps i underestimate the number of a+ schools who are willing to lose recruits without making promises. if so, then i am in the wrong there. i know it feels like a REALLY low bar to clear, to 'not have promises existing hurt you as an a+ school', but i suppose i could believe there's lots of folks not clearing it.

also, i know your opinion is there's 100 good ways to play, and i guess i don't disagree, as long as we are using average standards for 'good', as in, at least marginally better than average. there's also a lot of ways to build great teams, but sadly none of them involve losing a high end d1 recruit to a lower prestige school because they made a promise and you didn't.

I don’t think promises are intended to “help the little guy.” I think they’re intended to allow coaches of all levels to make a risk/reward calculation on every recruit they decide to make a play for. Do they “help the little guy?” For some recruits, absolutely. It is not as if everyone is offering promises to one select group of elite recruits. It’s all about prioritization, how much are you willing to give. For the B level guys an A+ team is using as a backup, and may not have saved resources for; to lock in a guy a lower division team may have gone all in on before their red light lifts; you’re looking at it from one perspective, and there are dozens of ways to use the tool.

Frankly, it’s ludicrous to suggest that eliminating promises (and presumably the playing time preference) would do anything but benefit A+ teams. As I said, if you have an actual suggestion that doesn’t close the already small window of prestige within which teams can challenge up, let’s have it.

I totally agree that promises could be fixed and I've offered several brilliant ideas in the past :)

- Promises should absolutely last into the postseason, without a doubt.
- Players should get upset much more easily and transfer much more quickly if promises are broken. But then the forums will be flooded with people complaining that they didn't have time to set their depth chart and lost a player and there weren't enough easy reminders (just kidding guys).
- Promises should be extended throughout the players career. It's stupid that a Frosh NEEDS to start to be happy but then is content coming off the bench for the rest of his career.

I always thought a system where you had to make 'promises' to each player in the offseason to signify their role on the team for the following season. You need to tell a Junior how much he will play the following season and if he doesn't like it, he transfers. I think this is something the replicates real life where the coach sits down with each player and says things like "hey you're going to lead this team next year" or "we got a 5 star coming in, you're not going to play much".

I think this would add some much needed strategy and decision making. At this point, I don't even hesitate to offer a start. This should be a much bigger decision.

Also, I don't like how it's just arbitrarily decided how quickly a player gets upset about playing time as an upperclassmen. Some are happy barely playing and some are very upset. I'd rather have to define the expectation from the player ahead of time and commit to meeting it or not meeting it.