Posted by ethan66 on 12/10/2014 3:49:00 PM (view original):
The beauty of HD is that most coaches have their own ways of doing things.  I don't get the "logic" of diversionary recruiting, myself, but if it rocks someone else's boat who cares?  I don't think it's a helpful strategy for a new player but that's up to them.

Maybe it's personality -- while I've used diversions and deception in war games plenty of times, I'm more of a "identify your target and go after him 100%" guy in HD.  Part of that is probably because I've never had an A+ BCS budget, which probably allows for that sort of extravagance. 

My goal with both of my D1 teams to date has always been to just keep the recruits I pitch because I don't have 100k in my war chest to play games. Different strokes.

i have to agree with the diversionary thing... especially if an opponent is showing up light on FSS, if you drop a few grand into the guy a couple cycles before signings, their response is usually much more than a few grand (using d1 scale of money). its a good tactic in niche situations, for sure. i don't think there is anything wrong with it inherently.

all the stuff in the OP is pretty standard, i think. however, there is definitely an area where you get into "brutal tactics" territory, and at some point i decided to stay out of that range, i just think it ruins the experience too much for the other guy for not that much gain for me. it was more an issue across divisions when you had access to promises for any recruit, now its more of a d1 issue. in the olden days, id do something like, jump every recruit a guy was on, the cycle before signings, so i could just go after the 1 i really wanted, leveraging promises to keep it cheap for me. a couple guys got rather upset and i figured i could win that guy most of the time without going to those lengths. in d1 you can certainly use extra money to keep a potential local rival down, it makes a lot of sense strategically in some areas, but its just something i stay away from, even when i've gotten into "all out war" mode with opponents where we are battling all in virtually every season. if there was a world designated for high competition, with things like enhanced firings and other modifications to enhance recruiting competition, i could certainly see using various tricks on a regular basis, because it would be more par for the course. but given that this is a fairly friendly game, i think most people try to keep the experience of the other person in mind to some extent. i think some people take this all the way to not poaching, i certainly don't (the reward for one person is pretty substantial to justify the hit to the other, plus the game is so set up to reward that strategy), but its really for everyone to draw their own line. i don't think anything is inherently off limits except collusion.

Like gillispie1, I would not want to tell anyone else how they should play this game as long as they stay within the accepted rules. I do think there is something to be said for having a certain amount of sportsmanship and maintaining a sense of fair play when it comes to games like this (or with life in general). Is the "winning at all costs" mentality really worth it in the end? I can think of a certain NFL football team that plays in the northeast that for years has bent, twisted, ignored, and even flat out broken the rules they were supposed to be playing under. Have they had success? Certainly. Are there people who admire that kind of approach? I'm sure there are. But is winning really worth sacrificing one's integrity? There are plenty of examples in the sports world where teams, coaches, and players have had great success, not only just staying within the rules of the game, but going that extra step of playing with sportsmanship and goodwill. How that would specifically shake out while playing HD will be different for everyone, but if the overall attitude were to be that of a friendly and cordial competition, most serious problems should be avoided.