My conventional wisdom being at Nicholls St. in D1 has told me to not battle Big6 team for the sheer fact of the money factor.

However in this last recruiting period (its over now). I jumped on a guy at the same cycle as another big6 team, my wisdom forced me to back off however, I had a 100 mile distance advantage, we were the same prestige, and he only had 1 more scholarship than me meanwhile at the end of the period I took on a walk on. So scholarships were even basically. The other Nugget to give is he was in a recruiting battle already and proceeded into 2 over the period.

Should I have gone against my wisdom and tried to battle for the recruit seeing as I had the mile advantage/same prestige/ and basically same open schollies?

You were looking at all the right information, the big question was how invested he was in those two battles.  In your position I would definitely slow play it, keeping a very close eye on how those battles are going.  Check out the number of open scholarships the teams he is battling have, and checking the WOTS every for every update.  In general its not a good idea to jump into a battle with a BCS school under these circumstances, but depending on how thin he is spread with the battles it could absolutely be winnable.

Posted by clouseb on 10/22/2015 11:52:00 PM (view original):
You were looking at all the right information, the big question was how invested he was in those two battles.  In your position I would definitely slow play it, keeping a very close eye on how those battles are going.  Check out the number of open scholarships the teams he is battling have, and checking the WOTS every for every update.  In general its not a good idea to jump into a battle with a BCS school under these circumstances, but depending on how thin he is spread with the battles it could absolutely be winnable.

Thats kind of why I have all this info, I watched a lot and just never jumped in. The difference between where I'm at and where I should be is whether or not I made the right play here. So far my recruiting strategy could be labeled as "Safe" But if I ever want to win seriously in this game I believe I'll have to get aggressive. 

The big difference would have been post season cash. He would have had a ton and you probably had very little. It was probably a smart move to stay away, but it would be fun to push the bcs a little and make at least think about that recruit

You also need to know where the price increases are in terms of miles away from a recruit.  What was the exact distance for each team?  The difference between 50 and 150 miles is basically negligible, but the difference between 150 and 250 miles gives you almost a 25% advantage cost-wise per HV you send.  

Posted by darnoc29099 on 10/23/2015 8:44:00 AM (view original):
You also need to know where the price increases are in terms of miles away from a recruit.  What was the exact distance for each team?  The difference between 50 and 150 miles is basically negligible, but the difference between 150 and 250 miles gives you almost a 25% advantage cost-wise per HV you send.  

yeah, this... basically, consider all players from 0-200 miles the same, 200-360 the same, and 360-1400 the same (although you can get upwards of 10% advantage in that final distance bracket). when people here talk about a distance advantage, it basically means, a bracket better distance-wise. 210 vs 310 is not a distance advantage, its a tie.

to answer the original question, there are two reasons to stay away from BCS schools - prestige, and money. if you had equal prestige and a distance advantage, i'd definitely take that fight. i take a lot of fights myself, more than i'd recommend others do, but if you have a natural advantage (the sum of prestige/distance), thats a pretty hard fight to walk away from. you can and should calculate bonus money of the other guy, and do some math, if he outspends you by 10k and you have a 25% advantage, who wins? you should perform that kind of "battle math" regularly. but in short, with the guy in other battles, i suspect you would have won, if you had distance.

now, bonus money is another thing. if you are a newer coach learning the ropes, its dangerous to get into big battles. but theres not really getting into big battles that you can afford to lose! the problem coaches run into is they will go hard for someone and end with 4 walkons, and it will set their program back. even if you were the same distance as this other guy, and he had 20k on you - its VERY easy for him to spend 20k more than you elsewhere. its very possible you could have won. should you have battled in that case? its impossible to say, i mean it depends on what you think he spent elsewhere, and how good the player was.

edit: also, don't consider 4 openings the same as 3 taking a walkon - its not. i glossed over that on the first read. if he had 25k bonus money on you, he had 40k more money total - thats a lot to overcome. you had 45k to his 85k, even with a 25% distance advantage, if you spend 30, he only needs 38, and thats not really a lot to him. so, the right move would be to back off, and wait, and watch. once you saw him in 2 battles, you can also do some figuring - who does he want the most! he almost definitely cant win all 3 battles. its a gray area, but often the successful lower tier programs make it by playing in that gray area, taking some smart, calculated risks, and only needing to win 1-2 of those to get a real lift.

There's one more thing to consider as well.  Had you stuck around and battled, could you have protected your other recruits if another school jumped on one of them before signings?  If the 3 guys you signed were all higher priority guys for you, then walking away from the battle you mentioned probably ensured you signed all 3.  But if you had engaged in a battle early on with a BCS school, other coaches would have viewed you as weak and may have come in on you at signings.  

Posted by gillispie1 on 10/23/2015 11:07:00 AM (view original):

Posted by darnoc29099 on 10/23/2015 8:44:00 AM (view original):
You also need to know where the price increases are in terms of miles away from a recruit.  What was the exact distance for each team?  The difference between 50 and 150 miles is basically negligible, but the difference between 150 and 250 miles gives you almost a 25% advantage cost-wise per HV you send.  

yeah, this... basically, consider all players from 0-200 miles the same, 200-360 the same, and 360-1400 the same (although you can get upwards of 10% advantage in that final distance bracket). when people here talk about a distance advantage, it basically means, a bracket better distance-wise. 210 vs 310 is not a distance advantage, its a tie.

to answer the original question, there are two reasons to stay away from BCS schools - prestige, and money. if you had equal prestige and a distance advantage, i'd definitely take that fight. i take a lot of fights myself, more than i'd recommend others do, but if you have a natural advantage (the sum of prestige/distance), thats a pretty hard fight to walk away from. you can and should calculate bonus money of the other guy, and do some math, if he outspends you by 10k and you have a 25% advantage, who wins? you should perform that kind of "battle math" regularly. but in short, with the guy in other battles, i suspect you would have won, if you had distance.

now, bonus money is another thing. if you are a newer coach learning the ropes, its dangerous to get into big battles. but theres not really getting into big battles that you can afford to lose! the problem coaches run into is they will go hard for someone and end with 4 walkons, and it will set their program back. even if you were the same distance as this other guy, and he had 20k on you - its VERY easy for him to spend 20k more than you elsewhere. its very possible you could have won. should you have battled in that case? its impossible to say, i mean it depends on what you think he spent elsewhere, and how good the player was.

edit: also, don't consider 4 openings the same as 3 taking a walkon - its not. i glossed over that on the first read. if he had 25k bonus money on you, he had 40k more money total - thats a lot to overcome. you had 45k to his 85k, even with a 25% distance advantage, if you spend 30, he only needs 38, and thats not really a lot to him. so, the right move would be to back off, and wait, and watch. once you saw him in 2 battles, you can also do some figuring - who does he want the most! he almost definitely cant win all 3 battles. its a gray area, but often the successful lower tier programs make it by playing in that gray area, taking some smart, calculated risks, and only needing to win 1-2 of those to get a real lift.

Thanks a lot of good info here. I feel overall I pulled the right move as I still captured quality players in my eyes. The guys targeted was going to be a solid stud, probably draft board eligible but I didn't get players I feel are going to be wasted. Overall I believe I didn't win or lose by backing out. Thanks everyone!

Always take into consideration that a conference with multiple teams making NT headway (as the Big 6 conferences usually do) get some bonus tournament cash. It's one extra advantage to being in a big 6. I also want to add that I attended Nicholls St. for a year in real life, and I didn't like it very much. 

If he was big six, depending on how good that conference is, I am thinking he has a lot more money... It's tough handling these décisions.