Is this a strategy that people look to do consistently or is it something that you luck into?

After a few times of losing local recruits to teams thousands of miles away, I decided to make a point to target a recruit with a Far From Home preference in my next recruiting session. I was "successful" in landing the recruit, however I had to use over 50% of my budget to not even max HVs and still only end up as a slight favorite. I can't imagine spending that much and losing a roll. Not to mention the scouting money dropped on just trying to locate a guy with a Far From Home preference.

Feel like I would have been better off rolling for two guys within a couple hundred miles. Am I missing something?

For the right recruit, with the right preference profile, yeah of course, at places like Fresno and Kansas (and Minny when I was there). UConn I don't really need to, the value isn't there - there's enough local talent, and I'm always at or near the top of the heap there. Sometimes you get out in front early with AP, and you don't get a serious challenge, because the AP+CV is enough to keep locals from investing deep. That's nice because of course the big problem is having to spend excessively on HVs, which is still the silliest part of the recruiting game (like can you imagine Kentucky's AD telling coach "no, you can't do any more trips to California to recruit the top recruits in the country this year, we just *don't have any more budget left SORRY*").

I make a living off that preference at times. I feel like it’s the strongest in the game in a way. Yes you may spend half your budget. But it almost guarantees you a recruit in the right situations. ‘The right situation’ is the important part.

preferences gotta line up. Gotta be ok with not aiming for 12 players so if you’re a M2M team and you’re ok with 10, go for it. Gotta see which schools are on the list and who your recruiting opponent is or will be. The better prestige. An early jump on the player. And most importantly, the sweet spot as far as the distance, 700 to 1000 miles or so. Also know how far away the opponent is.

if you look into all those factors, it’s not often other coaches will go all in if you’re already all in and they know they would be a long shot. As far as me saying it basically assure you a player….. I’m ok spending half my budget for that. In todays HD you can spend your entire budget on players and lose every roll. Happens to me often. So I’m plenty fine with a slam dunk signing that’s far from home. In fact, I usually look for far from home players FIRST, just to see if there’s any good options

right now, my leading scorers for Arizona (Gregor) and UConn (Kossakowski) are both far from home. My best talent at Kansas (Womac) is a far from home Soph, season just started. And my freshman starting PG on Texas (Calhoun) , who is my best talent just not high IQ yet, also a far from home guy.

I have long mulled about whether there is a "sweet spot" to pursue "far pref" guys.

What I mean is - is there a distance at which one is far enough to get some pref benefit - but close enough that home visits are not $1000 a pop. A distance at which one could afford to max out visits, get some benefit from being kinda far, beat local teams because of the preference, but have teams that are way far away not max out visits....

Have not really tried to do the math..........but....I think in some cases it could be workable

I agree with most of has been posted. I also factor in how many preferences the recruit has, as the fewer there are the more powerful far from home is. I also heavily factor in signing preference. Generally speaking the longer the battle the better is is for the far from home team as their ap is worth more. So I almost never target an early unless I’m able to dump a lot of capital in them.

Posted by bigtuna1 on 12/25/2022 10:48:00 AM (view original):
I agree with most of has been posted. I also factor in how many preferences the recruit has, as the fewer there are the more powerful far from home is. I also heavily factor in signing preference. Generally speaking the longer the battle the better is is for the far from home team as their ap is worth more. So I almost never target an early unless I’m able to dump a lot of capital in them.

Yeah number of preferences can be big. If Distance is the only one, well that's a no-brainer. If there are only a couple, and they are all positive for you, green light, probably. But if there are 3-4, and you're only neutral or worse in the others, extreme caution. Distance isn't going to counter all of them, it isn't that powerful.

Is there enough scouting money to get the 700-1000 mile range? Does this only work at D1?

Posted by Scapegoat22 on 12/27/2022 1:27:00 PM (view original):
Is there enough scouting money to get the 700-1000 mile range? Does this only work at D1?

You can scout quite a bit *at* that range if you want; but not *to* that range. You won’t get everyone within that radius, not to level 3-4 anyway. But you could, for example, skip the private camp (maybe do a public camp instead, at that range) then FSS the states at the level and approximate distance you want to scout. From there, you can send the assistant scout out and level them up as desired. It would be good to keep track of how many you are pulling in to the pool of course, so you don’t end up short, but as long as you definitely avoid FSS local states and the private camp, you should be able to efficiently get plenty of distant recruits in your pool scouted up high enough to know if you want them and have a shot.

One of the things I commonly do (and recommend) at D3 and D2 is scout D2 internationals (about 25-40) and local D1 recruits (about 50 at D3 and 75-120 at D2, depending on scholarships). It should be about the same principle if you just shoot for domestic distant recruits instead of internationals.

Posted by fd343ny on 12/23/2022 9:37:00 AM (view original):
I have long mulled about whether there is a "sweet spot" to pursue "far pref" guys.

What I mean is - is there a distance at which one is far enough to get some pref benefit - but close enough that home visits are not $1000 a pop. A distance at which one could afford to max out visits, get some benefit from being kinda far, beat local teams because of the preference, but have teams that are way far away not max out visits....

Have not really tried to do the math..........but....I think in some cases it could be workable

Definitely a sweet spot. I aim for it every session. Literally. 700 to 1000 miles-ish.

(edit…. My phone originally wrote “sweat spot”. Stay away from those!)

We mulled over this quite a bit on the discord forum. I've tried and had success with far from home but in D2 and D3 where resources are scarce it can be tricky. Especially if you are in the east coast and trying for a kid in Alaska or Hawaii and competing with a local school. Like Topdogg mentioned, I'm trying to find that ideal sweet spot. Maybe next season for recruiting I'll specifically try for that.

I guess I should be clear in stating that I’m seeing thru the eyes of a D1 coach now. D2 and D3 are definitely a different animal with far from home because of the limited budget