Of my team Jacksonville St. taking some 3 and 4 star recruits from the state of Alabama and near states around Alabama? Anyone have any good mentoring tips so I can start getting the big guys? I'm local to JSU so I would like to build them into a powerhouse. Can a small school like JSU compete in this game with the Kentucky's, North Carolina's and Duke's of the world?


https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=13879

You can build small schools into powerful mid majors that can be nationally competitive. The SEC is tough in Phelan, so it will be a hard go for you, and it likely won’t happen in one recruiting cycle. But if you get them to the point where they are consistently winning their conference, you can raise your prestige to B- and up, at which point you can compete for just about any recruit with a favorable preference profile. For now, one big advantage will be recruits that want rebuild, so make sure not to miss local and regional guys with that preference, especially if they want playing time (assuming you are willing to promise it).

Not unless you are incredible coach

you have zero shot

Well I’m not an incredible coach so that answers my question. Thanks for the honest answers. I still would like to build them into maybe a sweet 16 team.

Preferences matter. Look for guys that don’t have the “strong conference,” “wants longtime coach,” and/or “wants success” preferences. That’ll help you against Big 6 schools. You can compete against the bigger schools but you definitely need a little luck with preferences to help you along the way.

agree with Darnoc. Don't disregard preferences.

My advice to folks at small schools or who are rebuilding from low prestige - try to basically build a title worthy D2 team. A team that would just roll through a D2 tourney. You can do this by recruiting players that the big dogs may not want or recruit heavily. Go for those types of players first and then once you've build up your prestige and preferences (long time coach, strong defense, etc) you can start going for the bigger fish.

Posted by Benis on 8/13/2019 1:50:00 PM (view original):
agree with Darnoc. Don't disregard preferences.

My advice to folks at small schools or who are rebuilding from low prestige - try to basically build a title worthy D2 team. A team that would just roll through a D2 tourney. You can do this by recruiting players that the big dogs may not want or recruit heavily. Go for those types of players first and then once you've build up your prestige and preferences (long time coach, strong defense, etc) you can start going for the bigger fish.

i agree with this completely (and whoever said the same thing 2 weeks ago).

basically, start with an amazing d2 team, and then start trying to get a stud here and there to improve things even further. that will allow you to ease into big battles - its important when you are starting out d1, that you are mostly battling for players you can afford to lose. otherwise you might just get wrecked and give up on the whole d1 experience before you really get to fully experience it (which would be a shame - it takes everyone a while to get used to d1 - but it is a lot of fun once you've taken your lumps).

D2 schools can land top 100 players. Why not?