I've played HD a great deal and I never had this happen before, so I'm not sure what the deal is.

Wooden recruiting just ended. I had a player transfer away last year, so I wanted to get a senior to replace him. I make efforts to recruit a senior level transfer, and he is considering us and only us.

Yet the game won't let me offer him a scholarship and an email pops up that makes a joke about getting punk'd by Ashton Kutcher.

So I wait and wait and the guy never signs with us and now I've got a walk on and have lost all my carryover money and I have no idea why.

Send a ticket. It is strange. You never got to offer a scholarship?

So he accepted your recruiting effort, but not your scholarship offer?

I wasn't allowed by the game to offer him a scholarship. Every time I tried, it refunded my money instantly (I watched the $100 return several times) and then an email would come which acted like an offer of a scholarship was a joke with references to Punk'd and the AD asking "Where's Ashton?"

The player considered us and always us and accepted every effort sent to him.

if it was a D3 transfer, the athletic director won't let you sign him to a D1 team.

Milk is correct.  At D1, your AD can prevent you from signing bad players, regardless of how many years of eligibility they have left.  Prestige definitely plays a role as well.  At D+ or worse, I've been able to sign D3 transfers in the low 500's.  But once you get into the C prestige range your AD gets a lot pickier and the quality of guys needs to improve.

Also, if I'm not sure if my AD will approve me signing a kid, I just offer a start and schollie . You'll get a message back within minutes (not the next cycle) from your AD if he can't be signed.  That way, your $100 scholarship is refunded and it only cost you $10 to find out.  What's annoying though is the kid can accept all effort from you (HVs, CVs, etc) and you'll lose that money while never being able to sign him (and yet he'll still consider you).

Posted by darnoc29099 on 4/10/2015 8:51:00 AM (view original):
Also, if I'm not sure if my AD will approve me signing a kid, I just offer a start and schollie . You'll get a message back within minutes (not the next cycle) from your AD if he can't be signed.  That way, your $100 scholarship is refunded and it only cost you $10 to find out.  What's annoying though is the kid can accept all effort from you (HVs, CVs, etc) and you'll lose that money while never being able to sign him (and yet he'll still consider you).

this is on the money

I didn't know any of this. I figure I can sign who I want. The guy I wanted was WAY better than the walk-on, and I'd have kept my rollover money. When the scholarship message came, I figured for some reason I didn't need to offer him a scholarship and he'd sign anyway since he was a transfer (I've never tried to pick up a transfer player before amazingly enough).

I'm still a bit P.O.'d over this, though. I'd have signed someone else if I had known about these things - I had plenty of time while sitting around waiting for him to sign without a scholarship like I thought he'd do since I couldn't offer him one.

I haven't seen the email in a while, so I can't say for sure, but I think it does say that the AD is not letting you sign the kid. I forget what it was now but I played for like 4 years without knowing some really simple thing that I was like, duh...this one is way more obscure than that. 

Hopefully not too tough a lesson, and now you know.

And knowing is half the battle! 

It's a tough lesson in the sense I lost what would have been over 10K in rollover money.

Other than that it's not that big of a deal.

From the FAQ:

I guess I should have recruited some crappier players and then he'd have been consistent with them. :-)