At the level of individual schools, I think I have learned a bit about the real geography of recruiting from this game.  When I coach maryland, I find myself routinely doing FSS in the local area and to the north and east.  Just a consistently better path than looking south or west beyond the allegenies (sp?)......Every now and then an international and now and then a kid from far away.   And, this pattern resembles Gary HOF Williams pattern.  We will see whether Turgeon uses FSS in places like texas and kansas....or maybe he already knows the kids from FSS he did at his old gig....?

Posted by Rails on 7/15/2011 12:57:00 PM (view original):
I'd support a system that broke recruits into 4 groups:

• In State
• Regional (5 regions nationally perhaps)
• Non Regional
• International

Domestic recruits would be then be placed in one of 5 equal regions nationwide a) NW, b) SW, c) MW, 4) NE, and 5) SE.

Schools would also be placed in a region so that there would be an equal number of schools in each region.  Costs for recruiting areas would be:

• In State (Lowest)
• Regional (Low, but not as low as instate and it wouldn't matter where in the region the recruit lived.  All regional costs would be the same)
• Non Regional (Higher, but again, no differentiation between any distance as long as it is non regional which would allow for national recruting too).
• International

The key would be that there would only be 4 different costs and not based on miles.  To make it work, we'd have to get over the real life distances that is ingrained.  For example there would be a dividing line for SW region and the NW region and it could be where a school in the SW and a school in the NW are both 200 miles away from a recruit in real life, yet the recruiting costs would be different because the recruit could live in the NW giving that school a lower cost. 

Instead of miles and distance, we'd simply have to recondition our thinking in terms of instate, regional, non regional and international and not get so hung up on the actual city or town where these fake players "reside."  They'd simply reside in one of 5 regions or internationally and not any particular town since at least one person would bring up the fact that he'd be paying out of region costs for someone 200 miles away and in region costs for someone 300 miles away. (Similar to how the 250 mile line is drawn currently where costs go up dramitically at a certain point.   Some ask, how can it be where a home visit is twice as much at 250 compared to 239?  I'm not sure of where the line is exactly but you get the point....

That was with 5 regions and recruits and schools belonging to a home region, there would be recruiting more in line with real life.  Thanks Iquana.  I enjoy your posts.  I don't think anything is a surprise but your data is confirming.  I also think that the recruiting reach as you go from Big6 to the non Big 6 DI schools, to DII and to DIII gets smaller as you move downward.

I think this is a fantastic idea.  There are all ready so many screwy things with recruit "costs" that this would just simplify and make more interesting.  As much as people would ***** and moan like you say about paying more for a guy 200 miles away than for one 250, its no different than having to pay $300 dollars to visit a kid who lives right down the street from your school.  I suppose if people really had a problem with this idea they could build in some sort of option for out of region, nearby recruits where a school like Virginia would have a bit cheaper time recruiting in DC.  Or in in state out of region situation, where TX should probably be in 2 different regions, maybe its a little cheaper for Texas Tech to go recruit in Houston.  But I think that gets at the other issue with this is deciding where the regional boundry lines are drawn.  As a person who lives in Colorado i can tell you there is great debate over which region we belong to.

In that case, what about "INternational but close" - like a canadian for someone who coaches, say, Wisconsin that is absurdly close.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 7/16/2011 10:20:00 AM (view original):
In that case, what about "INternational but close" - like a canadian for someone who coaches, say, Wisconsin that is absurdly close.

In all honesty I think Canada should be dropped from the mix, and Australia should be added, but that's neither here nor there.

Posted by cburton23 on 7/16/2011 10:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 7/16/2011 10:20:00 AM (view original):
In that case, what about "INternational but close" - like a canadian for someone who coaches, say, Wisconsin that is absurdly close.

In all honesty I think Canada should be dropped from the mix, and Australia should be added, but that's neither here nor there.

Why drop Canada? Canada produces more real-life D1 basketball players (64) than any other country. I agree Australia should be added to the mix, as they are 2nd (37), as well as the UK (33).

based on Rails suggestion of 5 regions, how about these?

1)   (Northeast)   Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York
2)   (Mid Atlantic)   New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia, Virginia
3)   (Southeast)    North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas
4)   (Midwest)   Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri
5)   (West)   Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota


Each of the 5 regions would hold about 200 HD schools.  Maybe 1000 recruits could be generated for each region.
You still could generate recruits on a sliding scale, based on number of teams at each division level. 
The Northeast would have a much higher concentration of D3 level recruits based on the load of HD D3 teams in that region.

When you scout a region you could spend maybe $2000 to scout half of the recruits of that region based on their HD rankings;  top half #1-500, middle half  #251-750, or bottom half #501-1000.   Maybe the entire region for $3000.
Or possibly the top 500 cost $3000, the middle 500 cost $2000 and the bottom 500 cost $1000.

I don't have a D1 team and don't follow these issues closely, but the "regional" system seems flawed (based on Iguana's breakdown for instance) if a team like Nebraska finds it more expensive to recruit in Iowa than it is to recruit in Hawaii. Might work for a team smack dab in the middle of a region but border states are all going to find issues like that, and to build "exceptions" like cburton mentioned seems unworkable when 100s of schools are based in regional border states. Even if that was workable then the border teams with exceptions would then have an advantage over teams in the middle of the region that aren't granted those exceptions.

i agree with narc, unless by region they mean states within a certain radius, the region stat is pointless

Posted by Rails on 7/15/2011 12:57:00 PM (view original):
I'd support a system that broke recruits into 4 groups:

• In State
• Regional (5 regions nationally perhaps)
• Non Regional
• International

Domestic recruits would be then be placed in one of 5 equal regions nationwide a) NW, b) SW, c) MW, 4) NE, and 5) SE.

Schools would also be placed in a region so that there would be an equal number of schools in each region.  Costs for recruiting areas would be:

• In State (Lowest)
• Regional (Low, but not as low as instate and it wouldn't matter where in the region the recruit lived.  All regional costs would be the same)
• Non Regional (Higher, but again, no differentiation between any distance as long as it is non regional which would allow for national recruting too).
• International

The key would be that there would only be 4 different costs and not based on miles.  To make it work, we'd have to get over the real life distances that is ingrained.  For example there would be a dividing line for SW region and the NW region and it could be where a school in the SW and a school in the NW are both 200 miles away from a recruit in real life, yet the recruiting costs would be different because the recruit could live in the NW giving that school a lower cost. 

Instead of miles and distance, we'd simply have to recondition our thinking in terms of instate, regional, non regional and international and not get so hung up on the actual city or town where these fake players "reside."  They'd simply reside in one of 5 regions or internationally and not any particular town since at least one person would bring up the fact that he'd be paying out of region costs for someone 200 miles away and in region costs for someone 300 miles away. (Similar to how the 250 mile line is drawn currently where costs go up dramitically at a certain point.   Some ask, how can it be where a home visit is twice as much at 250 compared to 239?  I'm not sure of where the line is exactly but you get the point....

That was with 5 regions and recruits and schools belonging to a home region, there would be recruiting more in line with real life.  Thanks Iquana.  I enjoy your posts.  I don't think anything is a surprise but your data is confirming.  I also think that the recruiting reach as you go from Big6 to the non Big 6 DI schools, to DII and to DIII gets smaller as you move downward.

Rails, it's this portion that I can't get behind and simply can't reconcile from a logic perspective (not that the current system is logical across the board, either -- you and I have long agreed that it's not):

"For example there would be a dividing line for SW region and the NW region and it could be where a school in the SW and a school in the NW are both 200 miles away from a recruit in real life, yet the recruiting costs would be different because the recruit could live in the NW giving that school a lower cost."

There's gotta be a way to eliminate that.

As Rails mentions, what if recruits weren't from specfic states, but from specific regions?
Outside of finding someone from a high school you're familiar with, I really don't care what fake high schools my fake players are from.

If a recruit lived in the West, you don't know if he's from Alaska or Nebraska.  It's in a sense a regional pool.   It doesn't matter that 3 top 10 recruits are in Idaho, as everyone in the West region recruits them with regional costs.
However, there still could be some sort of local flavor (maybe not called in-state) where certain regional recruits list your school as one of several favorites, and that favorite status actually makes more sense than the current seemingly random assigning of favorite schools, and weighs heavily into recruiting (maybe a 20-40% advantage).
That top recruit that currently come from Idaho might list 5 schools as favorites and location and prestige could be factored in. 
His 5 schools might be;   Idaho, Gonzaga, Montana, Washington and Stanford.   Probably even listing favorites with D2 and D3 teams.
Another recruit could have his 5 favorites with more of a West region sub-region;  Texas, Oklahoma, Houston, Nebraska and Kansas. 

One from the Southeast could list;  Miami, Florida, Florida State, Stetson and Georgia Southern.   If the first three pass, then it could be a big advantage to a Georgia Southern.  All of a sudden they're recruiting this guy with the equivilent of a B+ prestige, rather than their actual level of C.

It's interesting, but I also wouldn't want the sheer dumb luck of which guy ends up liking your school to be a real determining factor.

...kind of like the dumb luck of 3 top 10 recruits landing in your back yard in Idaho?
or no top 100 players within 200 miles.

I think for ease of understanding, instead of real cities or towns, you'd just have to think about them as living in a certain region because like you say people are going to have a problem with a kid living in Fargo ND being in the west and being recruited by Concordia Moorhead (MN) which is a school in the Midwest.  In this scenario a kid from Chicago (a MW city and in region) would cost less for Concordia than the kid across the river 3 miles away.  That's why you need to get away from the real life distance mindset.

Someone brought up the kid living in Winnipeg (less than a couple hundred miles from UND) or other like scenarios (Vancouver kids not too far from Washington State, etc).

But to really make the regional and nationwide recruting work it would have to be a system like this.  Iquana's proposed states are fine as long as the number of schools in each region would be about the same.  Naturally the real life states with more schools (NY for example would be in a region with few states).  For example, his proposal would have NJ and NY in different regions but as we all know they are neighboring states so we'd have to just think of distance as regional or nonregional...

I would guarantee that it would increase national recruiting and be more like what we've been asking for.  I guarantee it would add to the game.  FSS would also have to be thought of regionally too.  Again, the current system favors certain states, and schools.  That's evident by the thread asking "where are HD schools located by division" by a veteran returning to the game.  The current system favors human coaches who coach at schools where there are a lot of sims in the same (or higher division) in the same state or within a couple hundred miles.  Think USC or UCLA if the other mid major schools in Los Angeles are sims versus humans or LSU if the other Louisiana schools are sims.  

Girt, I get your point, but we already give a lot of leeway to the current system (PR not having FSS, the 70 mile rule--not the 71 mile rule, increased costs at 250 miles, but not 249, Utah only having DI recruits, FSS costs being by state without regard to distance or division (for example some schools would need to FSS 5  states to FSS within 100 miles and some would need to FSS only 1).  Moreover, more leeway exists currently like the percentage of recruits coming from the same towns and HS, not because they do so in real life, but because that town is geographically located between two schools,...and in general the disparity from where real life recruits come from and where HD recruits come from.  We already accept (well not everyone) a ton of stuff that doesn't make sense.   

We'd simply have to think of a recruit as belonging to a home region and not a specific town or we'll get hung up on non-material details like the importance of a fake recruit's fake hometown....

Posted by Iguana1 on 7/16/2011 6:34:00 PM (view original):
As Rails mentions, what if recruits weren't from specfic states, but from specific regions?
Outside of finding someone from a high school you're familiar with, I really don't care what fake high schools my fake players are from.

If a recruit lived in the West, you don't know if he's from Alaska or Nebraska.  It's in a sense a regional pool.   It doesn't matter that 3 top 10 recruits are in Idaho, as everyone in the West region recruits them with regional costs.
However, there still could be some sort of local flavor (maybe not called in-state) where certain regional recruits list your school as one of several favorites, and that favorite status actually makes more sense than the current seemingly random assigning of favorite schools, and weighs heavily into recruiting (maybe a 20-40% advantage).
That top recruit that currently come from Idaho might list 5 schools as favorites and location and prestige could be factored in. 
His 5 schools might be;   Idaho, Gonzaga, Montana, Washington and Stanford.   Probably even listing favorites with D2 and D3 teams.
Another recruit could have his 5 favorites with more of a West region sub-region;  Texas, Oklahoma, Houston, Nebraska and Kansas. 

One from the Southeast could list;  Miami, Florida, Florida State, Stetson and Georgia Southern.   If the first three pass, then it could be a big advantage to a Georgia Southern.  All of a sudden they're recruiting this guy with the equivilent of a B+ prestige, rather than their actual level of C.

This doesn't work (the top part, anyway) because part of Rails' system was in-state vs regional, which I like a lot. Also would like to see an addition of a stage between in-state and regional, which is "bordering state"-- this helps with the inter-regional issue, so if Nebraska wants to recruit Iowa, it works because they touch. Or Virginia-- gets the Mid-Atlantic by region but borders several states in different regions...

We give Hawaii and Alaska each other and the 3 west coast states as border states, and call it a day.

Giving any preference to real life bordering states defeats the entire purpose.  Actual real life geography is the flaw in the current system (both with FSS, and with how recruits are generated)...heavy in the same states year after year, catering to the humans in those areas. 

Recruits need to be thought of only as from a certain region.  Giving preference to real life bordering states is no different than the current system--more densely populated states (as far as schools go) win more than the Hawaiis and Minnesota's of the world.  That's the way HD is currently set up.  The purests who are looking at real life distances need to throw real life distances out the window.  No neighboring state benefit should exisit.  In real life does a school in northern Oregon really enjoy the same rl benefits recruiting a kid from San Diego as a school in sourthern Oregon recruiting a kid from northern California?  Of course not. 

It would look something like this:

School A:  Region 1
School B: Region 1
School C: Region 2
School D: Region 2
School E:  Region 3
School F:  Region 3
School G:  Region 4
School H:  Region 4
School I Region 5
School J: Region 5

Smith (Resides in Region 1)
Jones (Resides in Region 1)
Carter (Region 2 )
Anderson (Region 2 )
T. B. Steakburner (Region 3 )
J. Goodfellow (Region 3)
Courtney (Region 4)
Johnson (Region 4)
Granderson (Region 5 )
Ewing (Region 5)

Sims could recruit with mostly a regional view point...Costs for  Jones and Smith would be the same for Schools A and B while schools C-J would pay the same, but more.  Hometowns wouldn't be a factor just like height isn't...   Unless recruits are generated with division in mind and sims recruit with region and state tendencies, then the first price breakpoint  of "instate" could be thrown out making recruiting costs only with three price breakpoints--regional, nonregional or international.

Having costs so closely aligned with real life towns and distances puts way too much emphasis on the exact location of a fake recruit's fake hometown and too much pressure on making sure the formula is correct for assigning a hometown.  And unless it factored the number of sims versus humans coaching, the formula would be wrong.

A while back there was a debate about recruit generation and how it favors densely populated areas with fewer local human competitors. 

A few actually insisted that recruit generation would be different if there were 100 percent humans.  Incorrect.  Recruits currently are generated a season in advance without regard to how many sims or humans are coaching.  Utah, with its five DI schools will always have more recruits generated as a result of its schools than Hawaii will for its one DI school regardless of which if the five utah schools are sim and the Hawaii school is human.  WIS didn't design a formula with the anticipation that 1/2 or more of its teams would be sims.  In allen, hawaii has 16 DI recruits and Utah has 34 but that's not to say the ratio in Hawaii is better.  The five schools in Utah will be the reason HD generates five times the number of recruits that the hawaii school spits out, but based on distance, the recruits generated for the utah schools could be living in other states.  These numbers will be similar no matter what the world or how many schools in those states are sims...