Hi all,

Finally hopped on board for my first season. In my excitement to reserve my alma mater, I didn't take the time to fully examine their roster. Now I've signed up with a team that will have three juniors, three sophomores and six freshmen, and it looks like all are on scholarship.

I have since done some research and know the importance of being able to do my own recruiting. But I also know there's a recruiting hit for cutting players. Any recommendations on how I should free up a couple schollies without damaging my recruiting chances too much?

There is only a penalty if you cut players that you recruited. You can cut players that the sim or a previous coach recruited all that you want and you will get recruiting resources for the open spot the same way that you would if the player had graduated.

Posted by JayGarneau on 9/30/2021 10:20:00 AM (view original):
Hi all,

Finally hopped on board for my first season. In my excitement to reserve my alma mater, I didn't take the time to fully examine their roster. Now I've signed up with a team that will have three juniors, three sophomores and six freshmen, and it looks like all are on scholarship.

I have since done some research and know the importance of being able to do my own recruiting. But I also know there's a recruiting hit for cutting players. Any recommendations on how I should free up a couple schollies without damaging my recruiting chances too much?

There's no hit for cutting players that you didn't recruit. Clean house, go for it! You'll struggle as your newly recruited players coming in will be young, but in 4 years they'll be much better than the sim recruited guys!

Thank you!!!

also the penalty for cutting your own players is low, don't let it deter you if that is what you think is best. its very easy as a new coach to recruit guys in your first couple seasons and then to learn a bunch about the game and be like hmmm, i really want to cut this guy or two - if you get there, do it. the only caveat is, if you are about to switch schools anyway, don't do it - the reputation hit you get from cutting your own players will roughly stop you from picking up a d1 school after you cut your 2nd player, or something like that. but after 1-2 seasons it recovers. there's like supposedly some recruiting penalty or something from cutting your own player, but nobody has ever assessed it to be anything but negligible.

I'm guessing I'll need to cut them before recruiting starts to get the recruiting resources to fill their spots, and then just roll with 10-11 players during the current season?

well, you can only cut them at 1 time of the year, which is right before and during RS2, between the seasons. so pretty much yes, you'll need to cut them then. you can't start the season and decide you want to cut them and get money for RS1.

however, if you are in RS2, and you are like well, i'd like to cut these 4 guys, but i'm not sure i can replace them, so i'm going to cut 2 and then as i sign guys, cut the other 2 as i can swing it - that is totally fine. you can continue to cut through RS2 and you get the resources for those guys then. you just don't really get back the AP/cycle you would have gotten in the earlier cycles before you cut them. but you get everything else, the money, the scouting money, and AP/cycle from that point in time onward.

also if you are running m2m or zone look at 9 players as a good minimum. its plenty during a rebuild. 8 works but the sim will 'help' you by signing a walkon caliber player to a scholarship spot to get you up to 9 scholarships. which is really crappy. so its best to try to get to 9 players yourself - although its fine if 1 of them is redshirt or ineligible. 10 players is enough for m2m and zone teams to beat top tier press teams and win championships. 9 will hurt a tad but its still totally fine. if you are pressing you will suffer pretty drastically below 10 players, and it has to be an even 10 (6-6.5 players from the 1-3, 3.5-4 players from the 4-5). 11 is enough to compete for championships with press but you really want 12 in your best years. but 10 active players (not counting redshirt, ineligible) is still enough to be ok with press in normal seasons... so it depends what defense you are running.