There was no such things as drop downs?

That is to say any player could be signed at any level.

How would that change recruiting?

Would it be better or worse?

I think drop downs are inevitable, because you might see a well planned D2 school nab a 3-4 Star recruit if they use carry over money with many open scholarships. I do think it should be opened up a little bit but I do not think its possible to have no drop downs.

There was a loophole that actually allowed that for the first couple seasons of HD. A few coaches discovered and exploited it creating some very powerful dynasties. They were pulling in 600+ level freshmen at DIII. That was when you could use 5-600 phone calls and pull in players from across the country. It was complete chaos and many users were screaming bloody murder because of the discrepancy. I believe the loophole was closed in season 3 but I'm not sure.

In my opinion, having pure open recruiting would be a disaster. You would see DIII/II coaches blowing their entire budgets trying to pull in players they have no change of winning. You would also see DI teams grabbing 1-year DIII players just so they can carryover $30-40K in recruiting cash to the next season. I think it would kill the game completely.

Weena is exactly right on the possibility of cheesy exploits, especially by D1 teams who want to carry over that last scholarship on the cheap.

We can complain all we want about the "caste system" this creates, but how is it that different from real world hoops?  You'll have your outlier Dennis Rodman D2 player every few generations, but by and large the real talent difference between D2/3 and D1 is even worse than it is in HD.  At least the HD system allows for a little bleed over, some blurring of the caste lines. 

I can see more new D3 players blowing their budgets in futile efforts to sign players over their pay grade than I could see D1 teams dipping down into D3, or even most D2 recruits.  D1 would gain nothing, and D2/3 wouldn't gain enough to make it worthwhile IMO.

My question back to tanner is "What would be gained with your proposal over what is already in place?" 

I think wide open recruiting would be too easy to game as you all have described.  However I do think it could be beneficial to let any D2 school go after a recruit that would drop down from D1 eventually.  For example, I have seen players that are borderline D1 caliber, and if an A prestige D2 school goes after them they will drop, but if a C prestige D2 school goes after them they won't answer their phone calls, and in the end the player signs with no one.

So, is your suggestion just to eliminate prestige for DII and DIII? Or just that any player that would drop th the highest A+ would eventually drop to the lowest d- but much later in recruiting? Would that apply to only drop downs? Would that same player be able to be pulled down right away by the. D- prestige but with much more effort?

I'm saying any player that would drop to an A D2 school should eventually drop to a D D2 school if no one has gone after them, the idea of a player not going anywhere because they didn't get a D1 offer doesn't seem beneficial or realistic.

Right, but anyone that would eventually drop down could be pulled down immediately. Wouldn't his idea eliminate any prestige advantage or are you saying this particular player would not be able to be pulled down

the original question, i believe, is asking what people would think of not having dropdowns at all, period. so, the #1 ranked player in the country (d1), would be immediately open to effort from a c- prestige d3 school.