I've got an A- prestige team in D3. My school is in middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin, so the number of high-quality recruits nearby is relatively low, but so is the number of competitors for those recruits.

I'm trying to figure out how aggressive to be with pulldowns, as opposed to going for dropdowns. It seems like it only would make sense for me to try to pull down a D2 recruit if he's within 360 mi (and preferably within 180). Anyone further out is going to cost too much in terms of evals to be worthwhile, compared to waiting for a similar level of player to drop (and I should have a fair number of decent drops, given an A- prestige).

Fair statement, or am I off-base here?

Pretty fair statement. Once you cross around 360-370 miles, the cost of an eval jumps to $500+ and that makes it a challenge.

One point you're missing though is that ideally you will have a few potential pull downs to target that are within 70 miles. You get a pretty sizable bonus when players are within that magic barrierm making it easier to pull down the players and allowing you to go after a slightly higher cailber player.

The 70-mile thing obviously works much better in a metropolitan area (i.e. New York City). You might not have anyone worthwhile that close if you are in the boonies.

Thanks, mniven. Yeah, I always try to find D2 guys within 70 miles first, but given my location, it's hit-or-miss; some years I have several worth targeting, other years, not so much.

That Wisky conference is tricky to recruit in. How many schollies do you need to fill? If it's only a couple, use that A- and go hard on some pulldowns, while tossing a little coin to some of the better D3 guys just in case. After one or two cycles, the picture gets a lot clearer. In the unlikely event that none of your pulldowns are interested, you still have time to overpower your C- rivals on the top D3s. Don't offer 'ships, just try to keep them leaning towards you until the dropdowns appear, then everything is laid out.

much shorter version: be very aggressive 70 mi or less, pretty aggressive under 180, and, if the recruit is the guy you need/want, go hard even up to 370.


my standard disclaimer on recruiting threads: i'm TERRIBLE at recruiting.