Posted by coachvegas44 on 11/16/2012 1:41:00 PM (view original):
I NEVER inform of a redshirt during recruiting. It is a negative recruiting value. You either will not get the player or have to spend tons of extra $ to get him. If he is a dropdown, you'll probably never get him. I wait until they get to campus and see the team. I wait until after the first exhibition game to do my redshirting.
It has been my experience under the new engine that you can never get a Junior to RS. A Sophmore may if he is in the bottom 3 ratings on your team. A Frosh usually will if in the bottom 3 and has always excepted the RS if in the bottom 2. This is just my experience. I try to RS a player every yuear.
It really doesn't cost that much more money. You probably shouldn't just send an inform of redshirt by itself in a cycle, just package it with a few home visits to offset and you'll be fine. To say that you either won't get him or it's going to cost tons is incorrect.
I use it some of the time - if I have a player who I like for a RS and don't see any competition in recruiting him, I'll go ahead and inform. Just takes the guesswork out of it, but I typically have balanced teams and don't have much of an issue in getting my freshmen to take the RS with no WE hits. It mostly depends on your depth - if the FR is coming in as your #3 or #4 player at a position, he's much more likely to accept it without being informed beforehand.
It's also probably easier for me since I tend to ignore the SF at D2 and D3 - I either put a SG or PF there (generally), so I'm usually loaded up at those positions, pushing the FR further down on the depth chart by the sim's view.