I don't totally get people's problem with recruiting in D1. The challenge of going to a small school with bad prestige is just like the challenge that exists in real life - you have to recruit against bigger schools with more money, and your lack of history kills you. Rarely does a small school become a consistent power. That is the fun of taking a D1 non-BCS school, with less than a C in this game. You have to take risks in recruiting, and become a master of the geographic dynamics around you. It's really hard, I am just starting to get a handle on who to approach and who to ignore.
if it was easy to take over a lousy program and start winning and recruiting better every year with no setbacks, the game would be stupid. I'll tell you what is not fun - it is some of the coaches I've seen who complain every time they lose a game or miss on a recruit, because they are impatient or don't understand basics of statistics, random numbers, and simulation. high D1 schools stealing recruits from lower D1 schools, an then low D1 in turn poaching D2, is part of reality and I like that in this game. It makes strategy important, and you have to budget carefully. If anything, I think recruiting should be shortened by 3-4 cycles.
The job process is pretty odd, I will admit that. I don't understand it completely, but I would think that, like in real life, your latest year or two count very heavily, followed by your entire body of work. Looking at only 4 years, and requiring all of them to be good, is not correct. I think it should be turned on its head, and D1 schools should actively make offers to good coaches. I also think there should be transparent "contract terms", with high D1 schools having very quick triggers to fire coaches who can't meet certain goals in X number of years (e.g. making the NT. but I think it should be a "soft" goal, where the school has some likelihood of keeping coaches who got close but did not meet the goal). I think you should be able to see who is in the running for jobs as well
12/6/2010 6:43 PM (edited)