johnner, i think you'd agree that colorado is by far the most dangerous team to you, long term, outside your conference. im not saying you maliciously attacked them, but i think you should certainly respect the situation and should not influence anybody to compete with them, in any way. doing so is certainly an advantage, right?
i also think you gain an advantage in general from your first message. you would probably never had somebody post about it if you stopped there. anyway, letting a guy know somebody is a prime target of your certainly affects their decision, and i am pretty confident it is in your favor. i get plenty of sitemails when my prestige gets high, asking if i am going for this guy or that guy, or maybe everybody who i am going for. it seems most people don't want to waste money losing a battle to the A/A+ prestige schools, its just not worth it, they would much rather just know who you wanted and steer clear. so i really cannot see how your site mail, which honestly comes across as bullying, does not give you an advantage...
"He's going to cost you approximately 60K for this guy if I don't put any more into him. I have the prestige advantage and a significant chunk into him because I knew I would be competing with other high prestige schools for him. Consider this a helping hand and know that I could still double my investment if I needed to because I had quite a bit of cash on hand to start recruiting. I hate to see great programs strike out in recruiting."
IMO that sounds a lot more like bullying me than a helping hand. its like, just so you know, there is no way you can win this guy, so don't waste your time trying. sure, it is better for both schools if he looks elsewhere, rather than spend all his money and lose. but, its not better for the community. and i don't see where you could draw the line of acceptability between discussing who will get a recruit after recruiting starts and before.