I'll be starting for the first time in Rupp DIII (obviously). I've been doing as much reading in this forum as possible to try to get a good start. I'm trying to decide what team to pick (I imagine the "best" ones are already picked since I'm probably late to the sign-ups?), and looking for some help. Here's the things I've picked up that I should be looking for:

1) Try to find a team that was human-controlled last season (and a few seasons before, if possible) since it was probably better managed
2) Obviously, look for a team that was a conf champion, had a good record, etc last season
3) Find a team with only 2-3 recruits needed since recruiting will be new to me; together with a strong last season team and low turnover should spell a recipe for success this season? 


Are those ideas right? What about offense/defense? As a first team is that even something you factor in, or do you just adjust who you recruit to make sure you're recruiting the same system?


If anyone has other ideas... or knows a specific team within this opening that would be a good choice, please let me know.


Also -- I haven't "signed up" (or messaged) someone for a mentor yet, but plan to. If any of you out there are looking for someone to mentor, let me know!

-Jeff

if you're looking to move up to D2 as soon as possible, just look for a team with a lot of juniors (soon to be seniors).  That will get you your best chance to leap to the next level.  But if you're looking to stay, I'd look for the most active conference.  Sort by conference and join one that has the least amount of openings.  You could turn any team into a winner.

All of the things you said are correct.  The first thing I would look at though is prestige.  The higher the prestige, the easier it is to sign the best players.  Even with a lot of open scholarships, you would still be able to build a solid team at a high prestige school.  I wouldn't worry about offense or defense at all.  You can always change later if you want.

I agree with your train of thought, althought I wouldn't insist on a team with a real good record and prestige.  You'll learn more if less in handed to you.  

I agreee you shouldn't worry about the O or D they are playing, but I also wouldn't try to change them next season.  IQ does matter, don't add to your degree of difficult right now.

I would also shoot for a conference with a decent amount of humans.  It's generally more fun.  If you can see the current schedules (I don't recall), see if tehre are a lot of sim AIs in games 11-26.  Som coaches might jump on ths thread and advertise their conferences

Everyone is different but i would advise taking over a bad team and doing a slow build. If you do that just try to get recruits who will be better than the current roster. Then each subsequent season get a better class than the last. May take you a year but it will force you to avoid going after players you can't get and you'll become a good coach.

I agree with the thoughts that the best thing a new coach can do is take over a bad team and rebuild them. Taking over a good team will set you up with a false sense of experience.

However if your goal is just to move up as fast as possible (not recommended by me) then find the team int he best spot to win immediatley.

I do agree though that you don't want to recruit too much in your first season. My first season I recruited horribly and luckily only had 3 players, if it had been 5 or 6 I'd have been screwed for several seasons.

I guess I didn't take into consideration what your ultimate goal is.  If it's to move up, get as high a prestige school as you can.  I'd advise staying at least four seasons so you can run the full life cycle of your own recruits and learn the ropes.  Then you should be in a position to land a good D2 or low-level D1 job.  If your goal is to stay and build a D3 dynasty, I'd still go after the highest prestige school you can get, but look for a school in an active conference.  It's no fun, even if you're winning, if your conference is empty or near empty.  When you search for jobs, just sort by conference and the conference that has the fewest number of openings has, conversely, the most human coached teams.  Either way, I think you can learn just as much by taking over a high prestige school as a low one.

Thanks for all of the responses, guys.

I ended up with the University conference, coaching Emory. I appreciate all of your insight... hopefully it will help future new-guys, too!