For those who may be concerned about D3 schools winning recruiting contests against D1 programs, this should make you feel a bit better...

In Phelan, I am running a D3 program at Fitchburg State. I was targeting a D1-caliber (according to the system) player named George Williams -- #117 PG. I had Attention Points on him from the opening of Recruiting session #1 all the way through the end. I opened up...and offered...a Scholarship on Day 1, and Guaranteed both a Start and 20 minutes of Playing Time -- unfortunately, not a Preference for him -- on Day 2. I ended up spending 1,154 Attention Points [nearly averaging 43 per period] on this recruit which I believe is a HUGE figure (Note: During Beta, I recall Seble indicating that anything more than 600 AP might be considered a "significant" amount). With approximately 3 recruiting periods remaining before final 24 hours, when the infamous "Red Light" would be removed from my program, theOnlyis and his Sacramento State Hornets* began their pursuit and successfully signed Mr. Williams only 2 periods later. I believe Sacramento State was Very Good in both Distance and Press Defense preferences while my Fitchburg State Falcons* were Very Bad in Distance, Very Good in Flex Offense, and Good in Rebuild.
* Yes, I used their NCAA nicknames even though they are not licensed for use here...so sue me!

Make no mistake, I am NOT complaining! While I would have surely loved to have had Sir Williams for 4 years as a cornerstone for our lowly D3 program, this is the way I believe the system should operate...giving D3 schools some (but very little) chance to sign D1-caliber players if there is any sort of competition amongst human coaches.

Note: Despite the results here, I continue to believe that the recruiting logic for Sims still needs to be enhanced because (as I have mentioned in other posts) it continues to be too easy for D3 schools to land D1 and D2-caliber recruits when there is no competition from humans. While missing out on George Williams, my Fitchburg State program did manage to sign two other D1 recruits and three D2 recruits.

I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this particular scenario and/or on HD 3.0 recruiting competition in general.

Same thing happened with Tristan Hendrickson the #162 ranked PG. Cal Tech (D3) was on him early, I tried swooping in with my D2 school in the beigning of the the second recruiting period but with crappy preferences (2 very bads and a bad) it was slow going. I was 250 AP's and 95% of the way to unlocking HV's when the D1 programs rolled in on the very last day of recruiting. Norfolk State got him.

Forgot to mention that I also performed 6 Home Visits and 1 Campus Visit as soon as those actions became available. This is a lot of resources in relation to a D3 budget.

Two things

1. This shows how important it was to have Spud's Red Light and how bad it'd be without it. However...
2. You still got 2 D1 guys and 3 D2 while still spending the vast majority of your APs and budget going after this other guy. At a B- D3 school. This just shows unbalanced this is. If a Sim just randomly chooses not to recruit these guys, you get them for basically nothing.

Would you mind posting a screenshot of the players you signed with potentials? I'm curious to see how good they are.

Running out to my kid's hockey practice now but will post later...

Agree that the SIM recruiting has to be more pervasive and systematic. There should not be recruits that have 10-12 SIMs on their Interest list while other recruits who might be somewhat comparable get no interest at all from SIMs!

Posted by bfflcommish on 10/20/2016 8:09:00 PM (view original):
Running out to my kid's hockey practice now but will post later...

Agree that the SIM recruiting has to be more pervasive and systematic. There should not be recruits that have 10-12 SIMs on their Interest list while other recruits who might be somewhat comparable get no interest at all from SIMs!

Agreed. I've said this in beta, if you want to sign a D1 guy you should have to at least battle a sim for him.

Posted by Benis on 10/20/2016 8:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bfflcommish on 10/20/2016 8:09:00 PM (view original):
Running out to my kid's hockey practice now but will post later...

Agree that the SIM recruiting has to be more pervasive and systematic. There should not be recruits that have 10-12 SIMs on their Interest list while other recruits who might be somewhat comparable get no interest at all from SIMs!

Agreed. I've said this in beta, if you want to sign a D1 guy you should have to at least battle a sim for him.

Not arguing the point you're making, but realize the full nature of what you're asking for.

One of the other complains is that there are too few recruited for position openings at D1. If you increase the number of recruits available, you increase the chances of one of them falling through the cracks. If you want a Sim on every recruit, then you're asking for a generation system that's very close to 1-for-1 and I'm not sure that'd make folks very happy.

Sims could over recruit. They have 3 openings but they put effort towards 10 recruits. Something like that. d1 guys would eventually fall through the cracks at the very end but you wouldn't know which.

I dunno. Even that I don't really like.

Still say just cap the divisions and D3 can only recruit up to D2.

I'm against SAYING its D1 welfare. And I'm against basically your entire argument that this is done for the benefit of D1 coaches. Ive said this since day 1. Please read these words and understand them. I'm of the opinion that this is bad for D3. It has NOTHING to do with D1 or the coaches who are at D1.

The merits that you're talking about are BS. Because I went for a player who just happened to not be recruited by a D1 sim that makes me a better recruiter than anyone else? That's all that's happening here. You can get lucky. I was one cycle away from signing a D1 guy at CNU in phelan when I had zero openings. If I had woken up in the middle of the night to cut a player I would probably have signed this guy because no one else, including SIMs, went for him. Instead i woke up in the morning and someone finally did take him which is what should happen. If I signed that guy it would have been 100% pure luck. Completely opposite of merit.

D3 teams are about to be extraordinarily good. The gap between the the elite teams and sims is going to be big. Its already huge today but now it'll be insane. New players coming in will take over these sim teams and get demolished by us. Even more than they already do because even the non "elite" teams will still be way, way better than crappy sim teams. They will also now take 5 seasons to get their own first senior class instead of 4 so that gets to last a long time for them. Have fun paying $50 to lose to me by 80 for 6 months new guy! Does anyone really think this is a good idea and good for the game? Is this attractive and fun to new coaches? Is this what is going to grow the game?

Or I could be wrong and there will be no negative impact whatsoever to D3 as we know it.

You cant fix stupid benis. We have been saying the same thing to Spudhole for the last 3 months and he will never get it.

I'm also strongly in the camp saying D-3 schools shouldn't be able to sign D-1 recruits.

Posted by Benis on 10/20/2016 10:53:00 PM (view original):
I'm against SAYING its D1 welfare. And I'm against basically your entire argument that this is done for the benefit of D1 coaches. Ive said this since day 1. Please read these words and understand them. I'm of the opinion that this is bad for D3. It has NOTHING to do with D1 or the coaches who are at D1.

The merits that you're talking about are BS. Because I went for a player who just happened to not be recruited by a D1 sim that makes me a better recruiter than anyone else? That's all that's happening here. You can get lucky. I was one cycle away from signing a D1 guy at CNU in phelan when I had zero openings. If I had woken up in the middle of the night to cut a player I would probably have signed this guy because no one else, including SIMs, went for him. Instead i woke up in the morning and someone finally did take him which is what should happen. If I signed that guy it would have been 100% pure luck. Completely opposite of merit.

D3 teams are about to be extraordinarily good. The gap between the the elite teams and sims is going to be big. Its already huge today but now it'll be insane. New players coming in will take over these sim teams and get demolished by us. Even more than they already do because even the non "elite" teams will still be way, way better than crappy sim teams. They will also now take 5 seasons to get their own first senior class instead of 4 so that gets to last a long time for them. Have fun paying $50 to lose to me by 80 for 6 months new guy! Does anyone really think this is a good idea and good for the game? Is this attractive and fun to new coaches? Is this what is going to grow the game?

Or I could be wrong and there will be no negative impact whatsoever to D3 as we know it.

I said this during the Beta and got slammed for it. HD3.0 is going to be a case of the rich getting richer. You guys think a select group of coaches dominated before? Wait until they are running with squads full of DI only players. We might as well remove DIII level recruits, because they are going to be useless. I've been in favor of caps since the beginning, but guys I will not name are too excited about the opportunity to recruit DI guys from DIII. These are the guys that Seble chose to listen to.

If you want to get rid of dropdowns and pulldowns, that's fine, but this is actually a far worse issue than that.

Posted by CoachSpud on 10/21/2016 12:53:00 AM (view original):
"D3 teams are about to be extraordinarily good. The gap between the the elite teams and sims is going to be big. Its already huge today but now it'll be insane."

Similar misguided things have been said about almost every change in HD (and for that matter in GD and probably all the WIS games). The sky hasn't fallen yet, and there is nothing to suggest it will now.

"And I'm against basically your entire argument that this is done for the benefit of D1 coaches." Except, of course, that that is the only group to benefit from these proposals. So instead of being "against SAYING its D1 welfare," man up and call it what it is.

Let's consider your point ... "Well, Mr. D3 coach, we're going to help you be not giving you access to good recruits. You only get scrubs. And that'll be so much fun for you. Trust us." Ummm, no thanks.

Consider a poll: for new D3 coaches only:
(1) do you want (A) good players or (B) lousy players on your roster?
(2) Which is more fun, (A) playing with good players on your roster, or (B) playing with lousy players on your roster?

If I was starting at D3 and my choices are first season I get to recruit total crap, have D3 SIM-recruited crap and have to play teams with D1/D2 quality players only to get blown out by 50 points every night I think I'd leave after 1 season.

Alternatively, if I don't get to recruit in my first season and play teams with D2/D3 quality players while I'm stuck with D3 caliber players I will only lose by 20 points and I might stick around (but doubltful as well).

Coaches in the same division should use players that are relative (how good are your players to your peers). D3 coaches shouldn't give a rats *** how great D1 players are (or D2 ones either) if D3 teams can't recruit them.

The only fun this will be is for the elite D3 coaches who decide its fun to run out D1 quality teams to beat up on D3 SIM teams and/or D3 noobs. If I was one of the coaches, I would put it on auto-pilot until I got to the NT which I would find boring as hell.