How much can a player improve over the 4 years he plays?

Let's say his position rating is 30-35 but he has high athleticism and speed for his position and a 40-60 work ethic level. What range could I expect his position rating to be as a Senior?

I am new and haven't used the scouting service so i don't know if that factors into this at all...

Those are all variable.  High work ethic is good, but it depends on what his growth potential in each skill is.  If he's a high-high in a skill, it's 28+ points of possible growth.  So 12 skills, if he was high-high in all 12 that's 336 possible points of growth.

Some skills, like LP and PER have been known to grow much more at a high-high, 40+ points isn't impossible.  The most I've seen as blue for a recruit is 9 skills.

FSS is invaluable to know which skills fall into the 3 categories: low growth (0-6), medium growth (7-21), high growth (22-28+).  Scouting trips will give indicators of where a skill is in those three categories.

Posted by guyo26 on 6/12/2014 11:48:00 AM (view original):
Those are all variable.  High work ethic is good, but it depends on what his growth potential in each skill is.  If he's a high-high in a skill, it's 28+ points of possible growth.  So 12 skills, if he was high-high in all 12 that's 336 possible points of growth.

Some skills, like LP and PER have been known to grow much more at a high-high, 40+ points isn't impossible.  The most I've seen as blue for a recruit is 9 skills.

FSS is invaluable to know which skills fall into the 3 categories: low growth (0-6), medium growth (7-21), high growth (22-28+).  Scouting trips will give indicators of where a skill is in those three categories.

Hey guyo: I saw a recruit a few seasons back who was blue in EVERY category! Unfortunately his Work Ethic was 1. I should have paid attention to see if a sim signed him to see to see how much he improved. Craziest recruit I have ever seen.

Each recruit is generated with an initial rating and a maximum potential in each category. FSS scouting service shows the 3 divisions that guyo mentioned as red, black & blue. The recruiting action "scouting trip" adds 2 more divisions which are often called high-high (28+) & low-low (0-3). You can get betterr information via scouting trips, but only one recruit at a time, it's expensive & returns 4 random responses out of all 12 categories. On the other hand, a scouting trip improves your chances of signing the scouted recruit.

You have the right idea about work ethic: a 1 will not allow the recruit to improve very much at all to his potential over 4 years. While a 100 WE could be expected to max-out early in their junior year. In the middle range of WE, it depends on playing time and starts. WE itself improves with playing time. However, very low starting WE will never improve enough to improve much at all. 40-60 with PT, will reach whatever potential there is after 4 or 5 seasons.

Posted by rogelio on 6/13/2014 1:59:00 AM (view original):
Each recruit is generated with an initial rating and a maximum potential in each category. FSS scouting service shows the 3 divisions that guyo mentioned as red, black & blue. The recruiting action "scouting trip" adds 2 more divisions which are often called high-high (28+) & low-low (0-3). You can get betterr information via scouting trips, but only one recruit at a time, it's expensive & returns 4 random responses out of all 12 categories. On the other hand, a scouting trip improves your chances of signing the scouted recruit.

You have the right idea about work ethic: a 1 will not allow the recruit to improve very much at all to his potential over 4 years. While a 100 WE could be expected to max-out early in their junior year. In the middle range of WE, it depends on playing time and starts. WE itself improves with playing time. However, very low starting WE will never improve enough to improve much at all. 40-60 with PT, will reach whatever potential there is after 4 or 5 seasons.

Hmm have definitely never bothered to pay attention to a difference between low potentials. If thats true we should totally try and put together a low potential guide like the high potential one to see the difference between messages. Could make all the difference in who to target.

I'm sure I'm like most coaches, I usually fish for blues, specifically high-highs.  I sort of figure 5 pts of growth if he's red, 10-12 if he's black, and either 20 or 30 if he's blue (30 if I know it's high-high).

It seems to me like many new coaches go for high overall ratings when it's much more important to focus on where those points are coming from.  99 Durability really raises overall score, but may hide core skills that suck.

Lately it seems like most of the guys I've been taking have had lower WE's, in the 20s.  But to the OP's question, FSS is very important to get an initial filter, but worry more about the players core skills and how high they can go as opposed to what his overall rating is.

I read once the Low-Low messages are: don't see any, doubt any
and High-Low messages are: not anticipating ... much, don't think/see ... much more, probably not ... much

Here is the guide.  I have 97% confidence in the splits.  [Keep in mind, the ratings are displayed as an integer figure, but the game preserves them as a fractional rating.  It seems likely that the initial and potential category figure are integers....I've got about 75% confidence in that.]

MASSIVE            28+                  High-High      (significantly, tremendous, sky’s the limit, massive)
SUBSTANTIAL  21 – 27.99      Low-High      (above average, substantial, really improve, major, big, lot, fairly significant)
GOOD                 7 – 20.99        Average         (good upside, decent, can improve, help improve, able to/should/could improve)
NOT MUCH        3.0 - 6.99        Low                (not anticipating…much, don’t think/see…much more, probably not…much, etc.)
NOT ANY            0 - 2.9              Low-Low       (don’t see any, doubt any, etc.

not 100% on topic, but possibly useful to some people:

HIGHS

Had a guy that went from 25 PE to 97 at D2--and gained over 300 points overall, despite nothing in RE, LP and SB. Would guess there are a few recruits that have such potential built in. Have coached a while now, and can count the 300+ guys on one hand. There is no clue beforehand in the evals, but if a freshman gains a point his first day of practice (after the first exhibition game), odds are he will undergo excellent development, maybe exceptional; development over his career. Assuming he is not largely red already, of course, but has lots of blue.

Anyone know if there are messages that distinguish between high-mid and low-mid?  Or do those distinctions even exist?

they do not exist. for some strange reason the 0-6 points range was split in half, the 20-27 and 28+ are different, but 7-19 are all the same...

*I probably effed up one or two of those numbers by 1...

Posted by dacj501 on 6/23/2014 2:16:00 PM (view original):
they do not exist. for some strange reason the 0-6 points range was split in half, the 20-27 and 28+ are different, but 7-19 are all the same...

*I probably effed up one or two of those numbers by 1...

This is one thing I would like to see added, the separation of medium/high and medium/low categories.