Posted by vegaskevin on 2/17/2021 12:31:00 PM (view original):
Posted by gillispie1 on 11/4/2019 2:35:00 PM (view original):
Posted by topdogggbm on 11/1/2019 11:01:00 AM (view original):
My favorite is 4-4-4-0. And it's not even close. When it's like that, 8 upperclassmen and 4 sophomores is deadly.
Next season at 4-4-0-4 you still have 8 upperclassmen.
Next season at 4-0-4-4, your Sophs are good, come NT. So that gives you 3 seasons of competing at a high level.
The 0-4-4-4 season is your worst. But it gives you a range finder of how good your future looks. If you can win a NT game or two in the NT, you likely have 3 competitive seasons ahead of you. Similar to the 3 you just recently had.
i love this scheme principally because it means you don't have to do anything every 4th season, although the full rollover is not a thing anymore so less awesome than it used to be. but overall still a fan :)
i suggest to folks a 'slanted' class structure. just kinda like everything else - you don't want to be well rounded, well at least not in the 'base level' of considering things (once you take a layer of indirection or two then you may want to be well rounded, so like, you don't want well rounded offensive ratings across the team, and when you take one layer of abstraction and go to player abilities offensively, you still don't want to be well rounded - but when you go to team offense, two layers, then yes, you want to be well rounded relative to the other 2 layer of abstraction items like team defense, team rebounding, team 'guard skills' or what have you). you also don't want to be extremely... not well rounded, when it comes to most things in this game.
i generally recommend folks have 8 upperclassmen at some point in their rotation, so you get a great NT shot at some point. it can be 4-4 or 5-3 or 3-5. then on your down years, you are still competitive, but not getting slaughtered. i like the 5-3-2-2 type structure or similar. one point i'll add is, most scheme make almost 0 use of their 11th and 12th man (at least in the NT), so its sort of wasteful to have more than 10 non-freshman. so im not really a proponent of having classes smaller than 2 for just about anyone, outside of the perk of being able to skip a season with 0 players (but most folks play this game to play the game - i probably am somewhat unique in that i define success in large part as having to play as little of this game as possible).
I like it too, but it's not automatically easy to implement.
Sometimes we lose recruiting battles or recruits suck.
I'd say it's a good goal, but the simple fact is we're not going to be able to sign 4 quality recruits 3 seasons in a row.
Plus, what about redshirts? Do top coaches/programs actively use them?
yeah, i mean i like the 4-4-4-0 due to laziness. i would never actually use it for a real program (not since rollover stopped existing in d1 at least), and would never recommend it to someone else.
the slanted class structures are the best. 8 between 2 classes, 2 in the other 2, that's the ticket. real life will get in the way, but you try to offset redshirts and unintentional walkons over time as you can. jucos can help but its not worth taking a mediocre player to fix the class size (so don't sweat the class rotation too much, its just a target). the reason i am so big on having 2 minimum openings per class is basically you only can take advantage of 10 non freshman. with a 4-4-2-2 rotation i pretty much expect to be able to beat 6-6-0-0 rotations on the up year, because their advantage over me (with proper sophmore development) is very small when it comes to talent and experience, even if they do an excellent job (and normally, they don't, because excellent coaches don't run 6-6-0-0)
the 6-6-0-0 type stuff helps primarily when you don't know how to build a team. i do think its a good idea for newer coaches to perhaps go more heavy in their slant - 9 or 10 guys in 2 seasons is fine - but do understand its a crutch you use because you can't do things right without it. the hope would be 8 of those 9-12 upperclassmen form a high end 8 man core that gives you a real title shot in your up year, instead of having to nail like 8/8 or whatever (when you are good, sophmores basically count as upperclassmen in d1, but less so in d2/d3). that way you don't have to be so good at planning and projection, to get a cohesive unit. once coaches have a couple titles, the gimmick class structures should be abandoned, it breeds bad habits and is highly wasteful.
2/17/2021 1:08 PM (edited)