I disagree with the OP; in fact, I think we have the opposite problem. It's currently too easy to sign recruits late. I just filled the last spot in my class by waiting until the break between signing periods and scouting the leftover D1 talent and picking my favorite guy left available. I then put 20 APs on him for the first cycle of the 2nd recruiting period, and after my 2 D2 guys signed I bumped him up to the max 40 AP. The cycle before signings (last 24 hours since he was a D1 guy being recruited onto my D3 team) I was able to offer a scholarship, and then for the next cycle I was able to offer HVs. I sent him 2 HVs and he signed at the earliest possible moment; obviously there's no way to know whether he would have done that if I hadn't sent the HVs. But basically, the only resources I devoted to this guy prior to securing the 2 guys I needed were 20 AP, I put
no effort into him in the first recruiting period, and he signed at the earliest cycle in which D1 recruits will sign with D3 teams. Total effort was 220 APs, a scholarship, and an ambiguously necessary 2 HVs. This was a positionally ranked recruit. I think this is out of line with the intent of this AP-based recruiting system. For a D3 team to recruit a ranked guy it seems like it should take a lot more time and effort than I had to put in. It's just too easy to pull guys down right now if they don't have D1 interest. This system might work if we had sufficient world populations, but in the ghost ship that's left of Tark too many decent recruits slip through the cracks. I suspect that within a few seasons we're going to be seeing that run-of-the-mill human-coached D3 teams would be heavy favorites against D1 sims, even the high baseline sims. That feels wrong to me.
For the record, the recruit was
John Bowler. He's obviously not an elite recruit, but he's high-high in REB, DEF, LP, and BH. In what I feel is another indictment of the function of the current recruiting system, his 60-orange ATH is comfortably south of the standard of posts recruited by the more competitive D3 teams in Tark this cycle, but those skill caps should still make him pretty competitive in all 3 major post roles (OFF/DEF/REB). This certainly looks like a guy who could easily play D2 ball under the old system to me. Honestly, as a late sign to fill a hole you probably wouldn't have been too unhappy to find a recruit like that at a D1 low- to mid-major. They've told us that recruit generation has not been changed, so more talent coming to D3 means less talent left for the sims in the higher divisions. I don't think D3 teams
should average 70+ ATH for their posts, at least not without giving up a lot in skill ratings (I'm looking at you, Dickinson). But that's what it looks like is going to happen.