This question is probably addressed elsewhere, but I haven't come across it. I've been reading a lot of threads for beginners and everyone refers to trying to get "drop downs" during recruiting, which I understand are players who start as d2 recruits and eventually can be recruited at d3 (or d1 to d2).

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but how do I know which players are dropdowns? Knowing that they're better recruits, and that I should target them is one thing, figuring out how to find them once they drop down is quite another. Is there any indication in the search feature? Also: how long should I wait to see who drops down before I start targeting these players, and is it even worth my time to recruit players who start as d3 recruits?

Well, you have to start at the beginning of recruiting and look at people on your D2 screen, and then notice when they move to your D3 screen.

There is no special way to search for these people, because each school sees different dropdowns. Like basically a A+ D3 school is going to see 1000 D3 recruits on their starting screen, but a C- D3 team will only see 600. Over time, recruits open their minds to lower level schools, so the A+ school will begin to see some more guys show up on their D3 screen. The C- school will too, but it will be poeple that the A+ school has seen a D3 since day 1.

Recruits start dropping about 24 hours into recruiting, with the most movement happening right around the start of signing. No one moves much the last day.

It can be worth signing a D3 player, it depends. You have to see what D2 players are open to dropping (call them, if they say "backup" they will drop likely) and then decide. The recruiting part of the game requires a lot of thinking to be good at it in my opinion. Hope this helps.

Send a phone call to a bunch of DII players that you would be interested in having. You will either get no response, a response that says "go away", or a response that says you are a backup option.

The ones that give the third response will most likely drop later on if not recruited by a higher division team. They will send you an email when they do.