Hi Im new to not only this online game but fairly new to the sport - got hooked in Jan and haven't let go of the zest for it since! I'm from England too which means my core knowledge of the sport is limited too so bare with me!
I've just joined Wilkinson world and we're about to 'recruit'.
I've not had time to fully read all the manuals although they look very good and useful. I will in good time.
however I'm concerned that time is against me cos first picks of recruitment start tomorrow! :0
I've tried 'watching' a handful of decent players but before I go ahead with any contract signings is there anything obvious that I should avoid?!
I have been given 21k and 7 players to sign I think. and I think there's a week to do it in - but I assume the best players go super quick!
thanks in advance and putting up with such novice questioning!
jh

Welcome to the game! You'll get a lot of help here. Just a few things to start:
1. You'll have great recruiting vision, since your team has won 14 games each of the past 3 seasons. That means you will see more of the very best players than the majority of teams will.
2. When you start recruiting, don't look at any players that are more than 360 miles away. The price for recruiting goes way up when you get out farther than that. Players closer than 180 miles are even less costly to recruit.
3. If you use the standard WIS recruiting page to search for recruits, use the specific position ratings to rank your players. For example, when you search for Quarterbacks, in the Overall Rating drop-down box, specify Quarterback, not Total.
4. You will need to have enough players at each position. You have 50 total roster spots. Most people go with a distribution something like this:
QB 2 or 3
RB 4 or 5
WR 5 or 6
TE 2 or 3
OL 8 or 9
DL 7 or 8
LB 6 or 7
DB 7 or 8
K 1
P 1

Also, you will want to send out AC scouts to find players with good development potential. When you send out an AC scout, you will get back a report from the scout. Here is a list of sentences to look for to find out the player's potential:

RECRUITING POTENTIALS (Master List)
Courtesy of ozzzball19 and katzphang88

Great potential
1. Sky's the limit (in the AC scouting rreport)
2. Incredible upside potential (in the AC scouting rreport)
3. A truly gifted athlete (in the HC scouting report)
4. Tremendous Potential - He could be a star!
5. World of Potential - Huge upside!
6. a very special player

Good potential
1. Above average potential (in the HC scouting report)
2. He's got the potential to improve his game a lot over 4 years with us. (in the AC scouting report)
3. I'm sure that your guys took some good notes about my game, and recognized that I have an amazing upside to my game. (message from recruit)
4. Upside is my middle name (message from recruit)
5. "improve a lot" (from AC scouting report)
6. "room to grow".
7. "With a little work, he could be a very good player" (from HC scouting report)
8. "Good potential for improvement" (from the HC scouting report)
9. "He's not the most gifted athlete . . . but not bad at all." (from the HC scouting report).

Average potential:
1. Looks like he has a hard time making adjustments. (from the HC scouting report)
2. He's made good strides towards reaching his potential over the past couple years. (from the HC scouting report)
3. I think his growth potential is pretty average - nothing special. (from the AC scouting report)
4. My motor never stops running (message from recruit)
5. I give 110% out there (message from recruit)
6. I'm sure that your guys took some good notes about my game, and recognized that I've worked really hard and lived up to my potential. (message from recruit) - This should actually be low potential.
7. "Some room for improvement, but not much." (from HC scouting report)
8. "Probably won't see huge improvements." (from HC scouting report)
9. "He seems slow to pick things up in practice." (from HC scouting report)

Low potential
1. "he's worked really hard in high school and has about reached his potential (from AC scouting report)
2. "tapped out" (from AC or HC scouting report, I forget which -- it's been a while since I've seen this message).
3. Not sure he has the ability to get much better...

Third, read though this:

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=444561

He talks about setting up a spreadsheet. You can do that if you like spreadsheets, but I don't think it's necessary. He also talks about yatzr's recruiting tool. You will want to learn how to use this eventually. But you have a lot to learn already...might as well try to keep it simple to start.

Good job BJ!

Thanks bjs! Much appreciated! That's very kind of you.
am I right in thinking the best go quickly or does it not work like that?
I clicked to watch some - is that different to scouting them?
what happens if I don't spend my whole 21k? does it roll over to next season?
can I sack other players in order to make room?
is it possible to look at the phrase (from post 3 in this thread) that was written for my current players?
where do I see skills progress for each day/season?

am I right in thinking the best go quickly or does it not work like that? The best do usually get recruited quickly, but not always.
I clicked to watch some - is that different to scouting them? Starting at noon EST today, you will be able to see all of the different ways to recruit a player when you click on his Recruit tab. One of them is Scouting Trip (Assist Coach). You choose to send one scout, and you will get a scouting report back in the next cycle.
what happens if I don't spend my whole 21k? does it roll over to next season? If you fill all of your roster spots, then you will be able to carry over 25% of the leftover cash to the next season.
can I sack other players in order to make room? At the end of the season there is a 3 day period where you can get rid of up to 3 players.
is it possible to look at the phrase (from post 3 in this thread) that was written for my current players? No.
where do I see skills progress for each day/season? When you start playing games, you will start to see his skiills ratings start to increase. It doesn't show amount of progress per game, or per season, though.

Excellent assist to a new player and especially for a guy that is from another country and not familiar with all our terminology. This should be a real help to jhartshorn as well as others. It refreshed some things for me and I don't have a D3 team.

Good luck jhartshorn and don't hesitate to ask questions here are by site mail to some of the guys like bj. There is always a lot of helpful coaches out there, although I'm not one of them since I don't keep track of all the details like others in the game do.

Ah you're a start bjs! much appreciated again!
jh

what does red-shirting a player mean?

Red-shirting is usually used on high potential freshman who you wouldn't play during that season. A red-shirt mean that they don't play that season but still grew to ratings and have 4 years of eligibility remaining. Must people use them on QBs, RBs and OLs.

Red-shirting means that the player will not play at all during the season but they won't lose a year of eligibility. All recruits get 4 years of eligibility (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). So when you red-shirt a player he will be on your team for 5 seasons rather than 4, but only participate in games during 4 of those seasons. A player's ratings and formation IQ increase during his red-shirt year while he isn't playing. Most coaches red-shirt a QB and RB since those positions are viewed as most important and a red-shirt allows these players to increase their ratings/formation IQ one more year.

Great thanks! Does this happen in RL?

Next question: I can't find this - how often does training occur? Every update (12hrs) or once per day/week?

One more thing:

Really stupid question prob, but is the aim for my Washington And Lee team to move up to the top division eventually or will they always stay in my current conference and simply I (as the manager) will advance to better teams in higher leagues? Does that make sense?

So, I'm about to set up some exhibition matches:

Best to go for high ranked/ div teams to bring in bigger crowds and money etc or does the negative impact of getting hammered affecting player morale counter this? Or do none of those affects occur? And therefore just pick any random team?