I'll preface this by saying that I don't think any of the coaches are bad people. And let's not bash children of the family members involved for defending them, or brush it off as unworthy of consideration. I think everyone here is better than that. This is just a game after all.

I will say that I've been affected by this glitch in Smith as a Alabama coach for 23 seasons.Those coaches who have been banned have been in the A10 even longer. My recruiting radius overlaps most of them, but particularly Dayton. There's a few things that have directly impacted me that I want to point out just because I don't think it is fair to say that it was "only" 40 worth of AP and didn't have much impact. It did.

Over the last 23 seasons, I can't tell you how many recruits I've backed off on from Dayton, St. Joes, etc. As an A prestige level school, I'm not talking about the top targets here. Those are going to be all in battles regardless. I'm talking about all the other recruits you have to target to be a top coach at the highest level, whether that be backups or just the next level down of targets that you might have to go for due to upcoming EEs. It is a very big advantage to be perceived has having invested a lot of AP, and early, for a recruit that isn't necessarily a top target. Especially since most of the coaches named were at A+ prestige schools. That scares other schools away, even other A prestige schools who don't want to be in a roll with another A prestige school for a backup. This advantage, spread out, allows you to have incredibly deep teams (something the A10 was known for).

Another thing that might not have been mentioned yet, but definitely happened to me on a number of occasions, is having one of those schools come in later on my targets and offering a scholly to gauge interest.This gives you a ton of knowledge on which players schools are prioritizing. I've had those schools back off if the scholly didn't move the needle, but I've definitely had those schools decide to move on a guy when that scholly offer moved the needle enough to know that the player was potentially another schools backup, or otherwise vulnerable. It's one thing if you have to use your AP resources to do this. It's another to discover this information for free while not jeopardizing your primary battles.

I'm not going to comment on what suspension or bans are reasonable. Not my place. Just wanted to share that this does suck being on the other end of and I don't think it was particularly fair. The fact CS knew about this 3 years ago adds a pretty big wrinkle. I'm shocked CS didn't move sooner as they did when Chapel reported his recruiting glitch. I'd expect that and they definitely share some blame here.

Wow. Crazy thread and interesting thoughts. I'll just add that I don't think a lifetime ban is necessary. I hope CS comes out and explains exactly what happened and can come up with a fix soon. It seems like the trick has clearly been exposed. And I'll add, there is a lot of posturing in D1 recruiting for lesser recruits, so this definitely impacts things in a cascading fashion.

Did the guy ever post in this thread or respond at all?

What’s the connection between swenske and the group of family members who were using this? Did someone from the family pass the info on to swenske or was it discovered independently?

Posted by tristandavis on 11/2/2022 8:48:00 AM (view original):
What’s the connection between swenske and the group of family members who were using this? Did someone from the family pass the info on to swenske or was it discovered independently?

without swenske stating, I don't think anyone will ever know

After sleeping on it, I still feel a disconnect with most others on this “issue.” I understand the initial outrage of this guy is getting beat badly in recruiting, this person has to be cheating in some way. But still outrage, even now that we know that it was a bit nothingburger?
Informing a recruit of a non-redshirt was common knowledge to be beneficial, right? Has to be. It’s in the name. It’s literally a recruiting button. It wasn’t called “non inform of redshirt”. But in the grand scheme of things it’s a small effort and won’t help you out in nearly any way in a battle.


There is no “secret” to be shared as you guys are speaking of. It’s not rocket science. The only reason these guys got kicked for “cheating” is because of a bunch of outrage that they were smart enough to use it on recruits without using any prior AP, and no one else was. My assumption was always that promised minutes overruled an inform of non-redshirt anyway, so there was never a reason to use an inform of NON redshirt because I’m going to promise anyway. I’m guessing they only went in and kicked people out who used this action first or who only used this action and a scholarship?

Hey Tristan, to answer your question, Last night, cimmy426 said in a discord chat last night (https://discord.com/channels/796012814149615656/799016113727471667) that
he does not know who swenske is. It appears to me that Swenske is what ruined it for everyone because he is the one that abused it. He was doing this on recruits he didn’t intent to sign I guess? Which is where people are mad? Now I will agree this user in particular does seem like a turd by offering 24 players (there are only a max of 12 players on a team btw) in 2 days. It looks like he “made” a lot of people decide to not go after any recruits just due to his mere presence of an offer on them. He seems to be the only abuser.

I don’t understand how anyone else could get punished for using a recruiting action just because apparently most people didn’t realize it was right there. You guys want every player to know every rule and every little thing about the game, and be the God and the overseer of the game with no mystery. Are other people going to be kicked out for doing things that aren’t explicitly stated in the FAQ?

Seems pretty comparable to the loophole in the past when coaches "forgot" to renew, then renewed and were provided full recruiting resources all over again. Lots of coaches were doing that, season after season. Bottom line; find a way to gain an unfair advantage and some will always be willing.

And I apologize if I come off as disingenuous towards those who decided not to go after certain recruits because of seeing other users on them, and lost out on signing players due to this. I’m trying to put my feet in everyone’s shoes. Just seems like a massive overreaction to kick people for using a recruiting action. I get changing inform of non redshirt to non inform of redshirt and taking away it being a positive effect. Great, no issues with that. And once more I do not blame CS whatsoever for their response because they were simply taking action that it appears most others feel necessary.

For those that are interested: Tonight in Allen, Benis faces off vs Swenske's St. John's team in the Big East semi-final.

Poetic justice?

Posted by dirti2 on 11/2/2022 9:41:00 AM (view original):
Seems pretty comparable to the loophole in the past when coaches "forgot" to renew, then renewed and were provided full recruiting resources all over again. Lots of coaches were doing that, season after season. Bottom line; find a way to gain an unfair advantage and some will always be willing.

I remember this outrage too. My buddy hitmonjake, I brought him into this game, he’s gone now. He forgot to renew, then did, and people came with the pitchforks accusing him of cheating. He didn’t get the resources. What a mess that was. I have forgot to renew in the one day window as well and have come back several times and have never gotten the resources (which is good). People act like it is easy to remember to renew. But the problem is you have to wait til the NT is over in order to get your NT credits to use, so you only have a one day window to renew unless you have built up more than a season’s worth of credits. I’m so glad they closed this loophole so that people won’t accuse others of cheating just for a silly mistake.

I do think that that non renewing issue is a serious one if people were actually able to use recruiting money twice. But again, just close the loophole. Did those players get banned? Probably were people who reported that one as well as cimmy426 said in the discord that he did with this inform of non redshirt button.

The renew/non renew thing if it really worked is a lot more of a big deal than using something that’s intended to be a part of the game like the inform of non redshirt button. So I’m going to assume the abuse/cheating part is the fact that this button was used on recruits that players never actually intended to sign. Genuinely curious. Does this mean that you guys want a limit on how many players you can send out scholarships to? I for one, do not, just trying to get a general consensus of solutions for these situations

Posted by salag on 11/2/2022 9:58:00 AM (view original):
For those that are interested: Tonight in Allen, Benis faces off vs Swenske's St. John's team in the Big East semi-final.

Poetic justice?

If I win, we get to tar and feather Swenske in front of his wife and children.

If he wins, I'll give him a nice hearty handshake. 3 pumps max.

Posted by salag on 11/2/2022 9:58:00 AM (view original):
For those that are interested: Tonight in Allen, Benis faces off vs Swenske's St. John's team in the Big East semi-final.

Poetic justice?

Lol that is a very cool coincidence. Swenske is between a rock and a hard place, no one is on his side haha. He abused a recruiting action by using it over and over on players he wasn’t even going after, and so he got that recruiting action taken away. He also got a bunch of people banned because he abused said recruiting action that they were just using, and he has everyone else mad because they didn’t know about said action. Go Benis!

I’ve been thinking on this too… it seems like there are three things that can be considered “unfair” or subject to scrutiny.

The first is not following up with CS a 2nd time after initially reporting the issue. I find that to be a relatively minor thing on its own, not worthy of any substantial punishment.

The second is continuing to use it to their advantage. When combined with the first thing, it’s tough to say this is all that bad. They did report it, it is a weird glitch, but then again it is built into the functionality of the game. Tough to say this is an egregious offense on its own, but…

Third, no one shared it with the community. I think this is the worst infraction of all, as do others from what I read. It’s okay to find loopholes or glitches and share them with the community and everyone benefits (or CS steps in and changes the code). The community values knowledge sharing and clearly their actions go against this. I don’t see this as cheating, not worthy of a ban, and I’m not even sure it’s something they should lose seasons, money, etc over. What they did isn’t great but I don’t think there should be “severe” punishment in this situation. I assume CS is working hard to untangle this matter—it will be interesting to see what they decide.

Posted by zemedlin on 11/2/2022 9:40:00 AM (view original):
After sleeping on it, I still feel a disconnect with most others on this “issue.” I understand the initial outrage of this guy is getting beat badly in recruiting, this person has to be cheating in some way. But still outrage, even now that we know that it was a bit nothingburger?
Informing a recruit of a non-redshirt was common knowledge to be beneficial, right? Has to be. It’s in the name. It’s literally a recruiting button. It wasn’t called “non inform of redshirt”. But in the grand scheme of things it’s a small effort and won’t help you out in nearly any way in a battle.


There is no “secret” to be shared as you guys are speaking of. It’s not rocket science. The only reason these guys got kicked for “cheating” is because of a bunch of outrage that they were smart enough to use it on recruits without using any prior AP, and no one else was. My assumption was always that promised minutes overruled an inform of non-redshirt anyway, so there was never a reason to use an inform of NON redshirt because I’m going to promise anyway. I’m guessing they only went in and kicked people out who used this action first or who only used this action and a scholarship?

Hey Tristan, to answer your question, Last night, cimmy426 said in a discord chat last night (https://discord.com/channels/796012814149615656/799016113727471667) that
he does not know who swenske is. It appears to me that Swenske is what ruined it for everyone because he is the one that abused it. He was doing this on recruits he didn’t intent to sign I guess? Which is where people are mad? Now I will agree this user in particular does seem like a turd by offering 24 players (there are only a max of 12 players on a team btw) in 2 days. It looks like he “made” a lot of people decide to not go after any recruits just due to his mere presence of an offer on them. He seems to be the only abuser.

I don’t understand how anyone else could get punished for using a recruiting action just because apparently most people didn’t realize it was right there. You guys want every player to know every rule and every little thing about the game, and be the God and the overseer of the game with no mystery. Are other people going to be kicked out for doing things that aren’t explicitly stated in the FAQ?

I agree with a lot (but not all) of this. I do think you're kind of splitting hairs between use and abuse, and exploiting an *unintended* aspect of the game for advantage, to any degree, clearly violates the fairplay guidelines and earns consequences (though as I've said many times, I am not in favor of a ban).

The question is whether this was an intended feature. The guys running the show now probably are disconnected from this question by a couple generations of admins. If it's true that this was reported by someone 3 years ago, the CS in question to respond to this might very well have been seble. And if his response was actually along the lines of "yeah, that can happen"... well that kind of tracks, doesn't it? And again, this is all hearsay and speculation. But IF that's the case, this whole mess is almost completely on whoever answered that ticket. Because that clearly (to me) gives the impression that they have stumbled upon a known and intended recruiting feature. And I don't think anyone is obligated to share that kind of stuff. I do (for example, I mention the extra senior redshirt resources basically whenever it comes up) but I'm not obligated to. I do think it is reasonable to assume that this might have been an "Easter egg" seble planted in the 3.0 build, because he liked that kind of thing. I suspect there are more of them. I do disagree thought that this kind of thing is good for the game. I think the re-write needs to be very clear and transparent, and needs to shuffle all of these features out the door. I don't think recruiting should go back to being a formula, by any means; keep the relative values of operations obscure, absolutely. But make sure we all know what the operations are, and how they work. No hidden tools.

Also, while a ban for exploiting this loophole would be over the top in my opinion, a ban for any collusion between users is always appropriate, and from my experience in Smith in proximity to the A10, related to what Basketts posted above, that's still on the table. To find out a number of guys in the same conference are doing the same thing is a big problem, especially if they are also not typically challenging each other for recruits.

now that we know how straight forward this exploit was, i definitely don't agree with lifetime ban. informing of no-redshirt being a positive is not a crazy thing to have seen coming. its hard for me to distinguish this from the first guy who used redshirting on seniors, or the first guy who used pulldowns.

here's another one that could be an example. in 1.0, there was a personality system, which was quickly removed due to being a disaster. allegedly. but it wasn't completely removed. there was an NBA preference that still mattered, and you could discover it via a 1500 dollar personality test, fairly expensive. but you could also discover it via about 5 coach calls and parsing the language. this was sort of known, but not exactly, it was perhaps as few as single digits, coaches who used coach calls to get this info. i don't think almost anyone used the personality test, even though it was more or less common knowledge that NBA preference mattered still (but i would guess only avid forum readers mostly were really aware, even though it was stated publicly). i mostly used it to get a sense of EE risk of my guys, you had to move too fast in recruiting to prioritize targets over it, generally speaking. but it was good info to have.

its hard to say fully exploring the recruiting mechanics we are given is a problem... its been a source of advantage for all of HD history, and most of that was not considered cheating in any way. its hard for me to draw a clear, sharp line between pulldowns (which IMO were a total bunch of BS on the part of the game admins, the way they lied about them existing to create mystery and the like), coach calls for EE preference, and something like this. or even the way we used to do $110 specials to get recruits to consider us on cycle 1, then pull the starts later for no consequence. seble didn't like that, he changed promises over it, felt it was not the intended behavior and clearly detrimental.

a difference perhaps is the openness with which these things were done, but users are not required to share their little finds with the community.