Sure and I certainly tried to be clear that the guide is by no means a right way to do things and that there is no secret formula to signing a recruit.

I think it basically sums up the general popular way to recruit in a bare bones basis. The big issue at hand is that rookie coaches come in with little guidance, usually recruit poorly, have a bad season or two and quit the game.

This at least points someone in the right direction in hopes of keeping them interested, from there people can develop their own strategies. 

Posted by hackerhog on 2/13/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
Pretty good guide. Good nuggets in there.

But you know... some things should be left for folks to figure out.

This guide is NOT the only way to recruit. It's not necessarily the best either.

For instance. especially if you are in D3, I think the best approach is to not spend one single dime on anything (FSS, calls, etc). Don't spend one single dime... until 2 cycles before signings... then look around at the players that are < 360 miles from you who are considering teams who are obviously overextended in their recruiting effort. Pump a bunch of evals and a scholly offer into him. He'll consider you the next cycle. Then sign with you the cycle after that.

Why spend a bunch of wasted money on FSS, evals, etc when someone else can do that for you?

D1 it's the opposite. FSS. Dump all your money the 1st cycle. Then wait.

D2 is somewhere in between.

Just saying...

This is an interesting strategy, hacker...and potentially a very smart, cost effective method for recruiting.

I think the problem I'd have with it is that I don't necessarily trust other people to find the best players...

Posted by hackerhog on 2/13/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
Pretty good guide. Good nuggets in there.

But you know... some things should be left for folks to figure out.

This guide is NOT the only way to recruit. It's not necessarily the best either.

For instance. especially if you are in D3, I think the best approach is to not spend one single dime on anything (FSS, calls, etc). Don't spend one single dime... until 2 cycles before signings... then look around at the players that are < 360 miles from you who are considering teams who are obviously overextended in their recruiting effort. Pump a bunch of evals and a scholly offer into him. He'll consider you the next cycle. Then sign with you the cycle after that.

Why spend a bunch of wasted money on FSS, evals, etc when someone else can do that for you?

D1 it's the opposite. FSS. Dump all your money the 1st cycle. Then wait.

D2 is somewhere in between.

Just saying...

lol, I do the opposite. D2/D3, I recruit early. D1, I wait.

How do you know that the other coach is recruiting good players?

Posted by tianyi7886 on 2/13/2012 1:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hackerhog on 2/13/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
Pretty good guide. Good nuggets in there.

But you know... some things should be left for folks to figure out.

This guide is NOT the only way to recruit. It's not necessarily the best either.

For instance. especially if you are in D3, I think the best approach is to not spend one single dime on anything (FSS, calls, etc). Don't spend one single dime... until 2 cycles before signings... then look around at the players that are < 360 miles from you who are considering teams who are obviously overextended in their recruiting effort. Pump a bunch of evals and a scholly offer into him. He'll consider you the next cycle. Then sign with you the cycle after that.

Why spend a bunch of wasted money on FSS, evals, etc when someone else can do that for you?

D1 it's the opposite. FSS. Dump all your money the 1st cycle. Then wait.

D2 is somewhere in between.

Just saying...

lol, I do the opposite. D2/D3, I recruit early. D1, I wait.

How do you know that the other coach is recruiting good players?

perennial powers. You gotta trust them. Lets say a perennial power is on a guy 860 miles away. And he's 40 miles away from you. That's a no-brainer recruit right there.

Here's another strategy that works well in D2 and D3... especially if your prestige is low.

Don't spend a single dime until the 1st cycle AFTER signings. FSS is much cheaper now because the player pool will go down. A D3 school can buy 3 states for what may have been the price of 1 state. A D2 school could buy 5 or more states. Pay particular attention to schools near you BEFORE signings to see if other schools are oversigning and pick up their left-overs.

I do this strategy often when taking over a new school and my prestige is B or lower.

In D2 (and D3) I pretty much do only coach calls, calls, and evals... that's it.

My point is there are many strategies in recruiting.

I searched around and leached a bell-curve graph to illustrate one more point, so hopefully it takes.

Idealistically recruiting in a world should go like the above... where money spent by D1 schools is the first bell curve... money spent by D2 schools is the second curve... etc.  And the x-axis is the 5 recruiting days instead of 25 years. Drop-downs occur where the curves intersect because they're not getting love from the schools they anticipated. And schools risk getting "poached" if they venture outside of their bell curve.

That's why I do not recommend a new coach at D2 or D3 to be spending your money on day 1 or day 2 of recruiting because you risk getting poached by someone with more experience, higher prestige, or someone from a higher classification.

hacker, I agree to conserve money early on, however I think it is not a waste of money to send out phone calls to help you see who is giving you a backup message and who is not. If you don't call the player when he drops somebody else who called him will find out first. Even 3 days into recruiting the $10 you spent in the first cycle pays off. 


I am with you that low prestige D3 schools or new coaches should not be doing any real recruiting effort in the first day or two other than phone calls to get on some backup lists, I think that is pretty widely accepted as good procedure-but it does not mean it is the only way to do it

bump

i've always attacked early.... most inexperienced coaches will shy away from battles (and even a good portion of experienced ones), so if you get a guy considering you early you can scare off a bunch of teams with minimal effort IMO....

that being said, the waiting and poaching thing is not a bad strategy either, just not one i'm comfy with

Attacking early works if you are not going for a dropdown but you can't just attack certain players.

Though I do agree attacking early going for a pulldown with a bad prestige can be a good move. You run a high risk of a better school showing up on the list too, but if you can come back on his list 2nd cycle by pulling him down you may get him to yourself instead of waiting and hoping someone else passes on him. But if you fail you can ruin your class too, especially at D3 with so little money.

i've had a lot of fun and some success at d2 and d3 low prestige doing this: when you have 5 or 6 openings and crappy prestige (C+ or lower), wait until signings, then FSS the whole country (or the parts that have d2 and d3 players, anyway). then pick and choose your favorite undecided players, and sign them all pretty cheaply.

but the point this whole convo should be driving home is that there are lots of good methods for recruiting.

Posted by nc2457829305 on 2/20/2012 10:25:00 AM (view original):
i've had a lot of fun and some success at d2 and d3 low prestige doing this: when you have 5 or 6 openings and crappy prestige (C+ or lower), wait until signings, then FSS the whole country (or the parts that have d2 and d3 players, anyway). then pick and choose your favorite undecided players, and sign them all pretty cheaply.

but the point this whole convo should be driving home is that there are lots of good methods for recruiting.

Yes, I certainly didn't ever write this guide as a thing that new coaches have to do and don't want to turn it into a post where we all argue about what works best. The guide was meant to be a very basic guide to a safe and effective way to do well in your first season or two based on a general method coaches use.

We see the same questions posted daily on the board, what are good stats, what overall rating should players have, can I play a player at any position etc... This guide answers all the things people are not sure about when they sign up. After that they are on their own to develop a system.

Bump!

Just want to bump this for all the new coaches signing up for a promo, not end all be all but a nice getting started guide.

This should be stickied

Posted by nauds3000 on 3/31/2012 6:00:00 PM (view original):
This should be stickied

I asked about that when I wrote it last year and was told no but thanks for asking.