I just got a job at Cincinnati. Simmy coached the team prior, and the roster is horrible. I have 7 open scholarships. As you can imagine, starting to recruit during the late cycle, and finding players that are serviceable at the D1 level, is not easy. If I am unable to sign 7 players, and take a couple walk ons...will I be penalized in any way (attribute growth for my players) next season?

No penalty. I would argue that taking multiple walk-ons is the right thing to do. You will get full scouting/recruiting resources for those walk-ons next season and will have the benefit of period 1 to recruit. No sense in signing borderline guys in period two just to fill spots. You will be stuck with those guys for 4 seasons. Just my 2 cents.

yeah ideally i would try to get to 9 and take 3 walk-ons that you'll get real resources for during the whole next season recruiting. you likely can't grab a great player in session 2 with the late start but can try to find some serviceable backups, jucos, etc.

Unless simmy has already established a recruiting history on a guy, you will be unlikely to jump in and compete for quality players this year. My suggestion is to use your enormous scouting budget, and plan ahead a few seasons, thinking serviceable for the next couple seasons. You can usually get enough jucos and transfers to both improve your team this year, and set up for optimal 4 and 5 person classes the next couple years, when you can shoot for some higher quality recruits.

It’s not a bad idea to scout D2 a bit, as well. You can find some decent juco quality there, especially in places like CA and TX, and you may find some cheap ones sitting out there.

After taking over a new team, one of the few benefits of session 2 is that you have a full scouting budget and simmy has already unlocked some players for you. I almost always did FSS on every single state and intl's. This way, you cast the widest net possible.

In session 2, look for players who can be serviceable four year guys. You are going to suck next season and there is nothing you can do about it except lean into it. Recruit some high potential guys (even some D2 guys with a lot of greens and blues) and let them start and get max minutes their freshman year to speed up their development, with a plan to recruit more talented guys in future recruiting classes. In an ideal world, in four years, you have a sophomore or junior player starting and then a senior backing them up and the senior will be a high IQ guy who has maxed out his potentials.

In your situation, spend a lot of time looking for transfers with 1 year remaining. These players will help make you marginally more competitive than walk-ons will, but still give you full scouting/recruiting money for next season. I just finished my first year at St. Joe's in a similar situation to what you face at Cincy. I found this guy (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=14014&pid=3832423) as a D2 transfer with 1 year remaining. He was a nice player for me and because he was gone after one year, I had full recruiting resources for a good class the next year.

thanks for the tips fellas