Quote: Originally posted by oldave on 11/24/2009one thing that has allways puzzled me.ever since the rewardspoint tax was instituted, HD management has made it clear that they would prefer that vets and better coaches leave the lower lavels and gravitate to D1 as quickly as possible.i cant recall if i have heard seble cooment on the subject, but since the rp tax is still there, i gotta assume that management still feels the same.so... if they feel so strongly that the lower divisions are just for newguys, why have a feature that is so advanced (and a bit secretive) and is only applicable in the lower divisions? i know there has been discussion as to whether tk really meant for pulldowns to exist, but whether it was an intended feature or not, surely it could be removed if they really wanted to.So, i guess my question is:do you guys agree that there is a bit of disconnect between management's philiosophy on the lower divisions (reinforced via the rp tax), and the existence of pulldowns?
im not sure i can agree with your statement of their philosophy of wanting "vets and better coaches [to] leave the lower lavels and gravitate to D1 as quickly as possible".
i don't think CS wanted all vets to leave the lower divisions, that is really a horrible idea. i think they were more concerned with too many vets and better coaches sticking around d3. in the extreme case, this would cause new coaches to have basically no shot of making the NT, which is not a whole lot of fun. or, if there were 20 good long time coaches sticking around in d3 (which is a pretty realistic case, IMO), this would take away almost any chance of new coaches getting their team to the sweet 16 in a 5 season run (or something like that).
so, i think CS was trying to curb the number of coaches trying to build dynasties in lower divisions, to address the above problem. i'm not saying i agree with it, but i also can see some merit in the intentions.
anyway, with that in mind, i also would like to spin pulldowns a little differently. imagine a world without pulldowns. now, players are going to drop evenly to d2 teams in order of prestige. this is a massive advantage for a+ prestige teams, and so on. for all the players who drop after signings, there is basically a pecking order, and 0 competition (because a+ prestige schools tend to be spread over the country). even before signings, you know there is going to be little competition with the a+ schools, so who is going to fight them, when the a+ school can always get their name on first (for all the drop downs at least, but i.e. that is all the players who are worth a ****). the same kind of philosophy applies for the A schools from the perspective of the A- schools and below, and so on down the line.
given how cut and dry recruiting would become in lower divisions without pulldowns, and the tremendous advantage for higher prestige schools that takes away most of the opportunity for new coaches to perform at a high level (the very thing i believe CS was trying to avoid with the reward point thing), i can't imagine why CS would get rid of them.
however, i believe it should not be a hush-hush kind of topic. everybody should know pulldowns exist. on the other hand, i can see how there is supposed to be some exploration by the coach to figure out the exact boundaries.
as a compromise, i think that all new coaches should be freely told something like, "you can pull down players early, any player who will drop to you eventually, by giving them effort through calls and evals (calls cap eventually and become worthless). the amount of effort varies on a number of factors, and you would be smart to try to figure out the limits as soon as possible as it is a huge disadvantage if you don't". but, the exact number of evals, which does vary by situation, should be to the reader to figure out.