In lieu of quitting in frustration with my lack of game-planning skills, I've decided to take over a major rebuild at Fort Hays State in the Tarkanian world. There are 8 open schollies, to go with 2 SRs and 2 JRs. Here's a link to the returning roster:

www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx

Not a ton to work with. The reason I decided to take this, though, is because I wanted to build a FB/FCP team from scratch. To do so, I need to settle on an amount of Team Practice that is the right amount, without generating diminishing returns. My initial thought was 30 minutes each on FB and FCP. What do you guys think? I want to get my team up to speed quickly on the new sets, but I also don't want to sacrifice skills practice, if the extra Team Practice is not going to be efficient.

I also welcome feedback on how to best utilize my 4 returnees.

I always do 25 minutes.  It seems to be a good balance of learning the offense/defense quickly without getting hurt by diminishing returns and still giving plenty of minutes for individual growth.  Of course, that is by no means the best or most efficient setting.  I'm sure someone on here did some complex model that will say 27.435 minutes is ideal or something like that.

Thanks for the input! I've never done a complete overhaul like this, so I'm sort of "flying blind" you might say.

I went 6-21 last season. And I think part of the reason is that my team is very poor on the offensive and defensive skill sets. I increased mine to 20 minutes per player for each this season. Let me know how your plan works. I share your frustration. I went 9-18 and 6-21 my first two seasons but I'm hoping I have figured out my errors in recruiting. I hate to lose/give up. I want to figure this out. I think my errors were made in recruiting two seasons ago

Posted by kbc167 on 10/20/2013 4:07:00 PM (view original):
I went 6-21 last season. And I think part of the reason is that my team is very poor on the offensive and defensive skill sets. I increased mine to 20 minutes per player for each this season. Let me know how your plan works. I share your frustration. I went 9-18 and 6-21 my first two seasons but I'm hoping I have figured out my errors in recruiting. I hate to lose/give up. I want to figure this out. I think my errors were made in recruiting two seasons ago

KBC, read this:  http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=453763

To the OP, the general consensus is no more than 25 minutes in O/D or you'll start hitting diminishing returns.

Darnoc. Thanks a million! This is like hitting the HD motherlode. I'm going to read the rest of this link now.

Posted by mlitney on 10/20/2013 1:00:00 PM (view original):
I always do 25 minutes.  It seems to be a good balance of learning the offense/defense quickly without getting hurt by diminishing returns and still giving plenty of minutes for individual growth.  Of course, that is by no means the best or most efficient setting.  I'm sure someone on here did some complex model that will say 27.435 minutes is ideal or something like that.

Are you saying 25 minutes EACH for offense and defense or about 12.5 minutes on offense and 12.5 minutes on defense? 

I'm sure he meant 25 minutes EACH. Going with 25 minutes TOTAL would take forever to build up IQs--if it EVER did.

I'm pretty sure it's 25 minutes EACH. That's how I've tried to dole out my practice time and it's worked well. My players reach A+ ratings either at the tail end of their Junior season, or early Senior season. Again, how quickly they reach the A+ depends on multiple factors, not just practice time. I believe practice time, playing time and starts matter as well, although to varying degrees...

Thanks!