Phone calls are a waste of money. Scout players to find out potential and then HC visits or Campus visits. Money is real tight at DIII so keep a eye on it and try to save some for later in the process.

Or, 2-3 AC Scouts and HC Scouts will do the trick too.

Appreciate the info.  I have 14 scholies I have to fill...based on reading the guides and using the GUESS recruiting tool I have 55 players sorted in high, med, and low I'm watching.

Your answer gives me another question...is 1 HC/Campus visit enough or do you normally gotta throw 2 or 3 at 'em???

So let me make sure I've got this right...scouting trips show their potential but doesn't generate interest?  Home & Campus visits gets them interested?

Everyone has unique approaches, but A/C scouts and campus visits are probably the most common. Most people will send A/C scouts to identify player growth potential. If they target a player, they will use coach's visits and campus visits because they have the most impact and are refundable if the player denies the contact.

Alot of this depends on the recruit and who else is looking at them. Also the morning that recruiting starts the sim teams will show up on recruits. They can be tricky to knock off and take alot of cash. If it's your first season try not to battle them and if you do knock them off as quickly as possible.

Posted by mcagrems on 9/15/2011 3:26:00 PM (view original):
So let me make sure I've got this right...scouting trips show their potential but doesn't generate interest?  Home & Campus visits gets them interested?

Actually, any action can generate interest. In my experience, it is heavily dictated by your school's prestige and the quality of player. Ive gotten recruits to consider only my school by a phone call alone.

Generally, the more money you spend, the more interest you will create. A very successful program will require less effort (money) than a historically unsuccessful program.

What I've been doing lately is break my class up into three parts: 

Take the first  of my scholi30% to 50% of my scholies and pick out the best players availible with the yatzr tool.  Pay attention to the player's distance and WE.  Then I send an A/C scout and guys who have high potential, I try to blow them out of the water ASAP.  2,3 campus visits, if I think they can fill a slot in their soph year, offer them that, I go all out.  I'll spend half my budget if need be.

Second part is after the opening of signing day.  All the kids who got looked over, I try to pick out the best of these and do an A/C scout.  I get a lot of these kids and scout them.  Then, unless he's a DIII, low potential guy (and even then somtimes) I'll grab whoever turns green with an A/C visit.  This is about 1/3 of my scholies, but I go CHEAP.  These are my back ups.

Last part - the last day of recruiting, I SHOULD have a LOT of money left, and I'll increase the distance to anywhere, and even drop my WE requirement.  I'll throw the money around (although if the guy is 2,000 miles away, it's expensive) and see if I can't land two or three big time players.

If you get stuck with a couple of sims, big deal,  just rescind their scholarships next year, but usually I don't have any.  Guys come cheap as the sand runs out of the hour glass.

funny. I send 2 ac scouts and 2 hc scouts. and 30 each: phone calls and letters to an undecided and they turn green. :)

If you have a lot of returning two three year starters, would that have any bearing on the quality of athlete you get? Will they be less likely to sign knowing they're not getting much PT right away?

Posted by grayfball8 on 9/16/2011 3:34:00 PM (view original):
funny. I send 2 ac scouts and 2 hc scouts. and 30 each: phone calls and letters to an undecided and they turn green. :)

Try it without the phone calls and letters and see what happens.  You'll probably save a few bucks.

  And ALWAYS keep a reserve amount so that if someone picks some of your main picks you can pick up the hidden gems from the undecideds left. Because you DON"T want to have the A.I. make ANY picks for you. Believe it or not you can often pick up some nice guys near the end. I find this applies more so the for d3, then d2, etc.
  

It's hard to say for sure, but lately I seem to get better results if I spread my actions out a little. 2 CVs seem to get about the same results as 1 CV, 1 HC visit, 1 HC scout, 1 letter, 1 HC call, and 1 AC call, and it costs slightly less. I may just be imagining it, though.

If I'm in crappy recruiting territory (New Mexico), sometimes I'll send out 25 or so phone calls to undecideds, just in case I luck out and flip one or two. They're never prime recruits, but it helps to have some high D1AA guys already green going into the last few days of recruiting.