Posted by StillWaters on 6/10/2022 8:36:00 PM (view original):
"I'm curious why one of [the] proposed solutions isn't to slightly increase the number of recruits generated each season"
Because that wouldn't matter. It would affect each and every team and its opponents equally. As would the other "solutions" mentioned at various points in the thread. Even the [perceived] increase in human coaches affects not only any particular team but also its opponents equally. Consider the possibility (probability) that none of the "problems" that affect everyone equally are actually the problems the posters think they are.
of course it would make a difference! the concern folks have here has nothing to do with the artificial d1/d2 boundaries or any version of me-vs-them (going back to your prior post). the concern folks have here relates to the sheer competitiveness for d1 recruits. at least me, and i think, cub / OP - perhaps not the rest.
the biggest concern to me is that it feels like we've been here before. we had today's d1 population levels with the exact same recruit generation that is in place today - and it failed miserably. a full third of d1 population was lost when today's recruit gen first came into place, and it basically never recovered an inch - until the jobs requirements were completely flattened to make way for the recent d2/d3 to d1 surge.
there's a couple differences today - one, top recruits are spread more equitably through higher end teams. certainly, the ceiling of the best d1 teams today is much lower as a result, which raises the bottom end of the spectrum of viable d1 recruits. however, you also have d2 and d3 teams taking lower but not bottom end recruits, in ways that were simply mechanically impossible, before 3.0. its not clear to me how these two effects balance out - its fairly clear one raises the d1-viable recruit count, while the other takes some away due to d2/d3 competition. on balance? i don't know. but i SERIOUSLY doubt that balance is enough to make 180 pop d1s viable again.
i would agree with you guys saying its all perception, people need to just adjust, if 1) i hadn't seen this movie before, along with the catastrophic ending (easily the biggest disaster of seble's decade in charge), and 2) if i didn't feel the raw competitiveness for mediocre d1 recruits made this game too competitive for the not-quite-diehard crowd. of course, that's an opinion as well, but i'm just trying to point out that the the way you are taking us (how one d1 coach fairs against another), at least in my case, is just completely different than the actual concern (overall competitiveness).