So I see two different questions in this thread - the first is whether a few teams dominate winning NCs in DII and the second is how long it takes to build a "rebuild". The first I don't have the bona fides to adequately answer, but for the second one I do. I took over Western New Mexico in Rockne when they were absolute dogshit ten seasons ago. I left last season where they finished in the top 10 and won back to back conference titles. It was my first time ever in DII.

For recruiting, Western New Mexico doesn't have a great 360, but you have access to California (closer to LA than Humboldt) and you're close enough to Texas to get a few recruits there. You have enough room on the West Coast to get the recruits you need without facing a lot competition. It's tough to recruit SimAI players, but easy to get Undecideds.

Formation wise, it's best to keep it simple. The WNMU team in Stagg right now is practicing 11 formations at the same time, not including special teams. That's absurd. I would practice no more than 4 plus special teams and dump the rest of the minutes in position practice. The Rockne team I had at Western New Mexico used one offense and two defenses. As a result, I could tailor recruiting and game planning strategy to my formations.

Game planning takes the longest to learn and separates the good coaches from the elite coaches. For now, the best advice I have here is to abuse your best players. It's not worth having a D2 QB run instead of using your RB1, even if your QB is the second coming of Michael Vick. On defense, I have never had a lot of success with blitzing compared to when I dropped everyone back into coverage. Check your own game logs for more patterns. Yatzr's tool is good for that.

As for how long it takes? I found 4-5 months at the minimum builds a consistent playoff team and 8-10 seasons is more than enough time to build an NC caliber team with the right coach. YMMV.

I truly think with the right strategy that is possible to win an NC at DII at almost any school. South Dakota is in the finals tonight for Wilkinson's NC - it doesn't have a great recruiting base, but it has had human coaches for 40+ seasons to build a good vision and create a good program. It takes a combination of skill, patience, and luck to be good at this game. Patience is most important, followed by skill, followed by luck.

Also feel free to PM me if you have any questions on Western New Mexico.

Posted by tmelonhead on 2/13/2018 9:23:00 PM (view original):
So I see two different questions in this thread - the first is whether a few teams dominate winning NCs in DII and the second is how long it takes to build a "rebuild". The first I don't have the bona fides to adequately answer, but for the second one I do. I took over Western New Mexico in Rockne when they were absolute dogshit ten seasons ago. I left last season where they finished in the top 10 and won back to back conference titles. It was my first time ever in DII.

For recruiting, Western New Mexico doesn't have a great 360, but you have access to California (closer to LA than Humboldt) and you're close enough to Texas to get a few recruits there. You have enough room on the West Coast to get the recruits you need without facing a lot competition. It's tough to recruit SimAI players, but easy to get Undecideds.

Formation wise, it's best to keep it simple. The WNMU team in Stagg right now is practicing 11 formations at the same time, not including special teams. That's absurd. I would practice no more than 4 plus special teams and dump the rest of the minutes in position practice. The Rockne team I had at Western New Mexico used one offense and two defenses. As a result, I could tailor recruiting and game planning strategy to my formations.

Game planning takes the longest to learn and separates the good coaches from the elite coaches. For now, the best advice I have here is to abuse your best players. It's not worth having a D2 QB run instead of using your RB1, even if your QB is the second coming of Michael Vick. On defense, I have never had a lot of success with blitzing compared to when I dropped everyone back into coverage. Check your own game logs for more patterns. Yatzr's tool is good for that.

As for how long it takes? I found 4-5 months at the minimum builds a consistent playoff team and 8-10 seasons is more than enough time to build an NC caliber team with the right coach. YMMV.

I truly think with the right strategy that is possible to win an NC at DII at almost any school with the right strategy. South Dakota is in the finals tonight for Wilkinson's NC - it doesn't a great recruiting base, but it has had human coaches for 40+ seasons to build a good vision and create a good program. It takes a combination of skill, patience, and luck to be good at this game. Patience is most important, followed by skill, followed by luck.

Also feel free to PM me if you have any questions on Western New Mexico.

Some info in here new coaches...

Ranger, 12 win average teams can often see a best recruit available. 14 win average teams see the majority of what is there. 16 win average is all you need to swim in the same pool as the final four teams.

Vision is not the issue and prestige is not either. You can schedule 12 wins a season to start competiting and 14 wins is not that difficult if you plan to be among the best in that world. I have lost to a 12 win program at D2 with the TAMC team you mentioned in Rockne and also had to spend just over 20k to keep a within 100 mile guy from going out of state. So that's why its hard for me to buy into prestige too much. This season, the #1 DB was battled for by lower vision out of state programs and was about 80 miles from me. If I jump into that battle, I knew it would cost me plenty, even as back to back champ.

What is missing from your argument is player development. If I get to practice 19 games and you practice 14 or 16, for 3 seasons, then my seniors are a near full normal season ahead in growth.

Finally, you have the game planning and roster usage that further pushes a coach ahead. You have to pull off an upset or two or will end up waiting for the top guys to leave.

So, I just can't buy into vision debate because I view total games played to be more relevant AND getting the most out of your team to pull off the upsets needed to advance. My TAMC team in Rockne that you mentioned was a 12 win average team and not the conference champion. It took some upsets and some backyard bullying to get control when the final four teams kept poaching from Texas.

Vision should be the reward for winning because you would attract better talent. However, they should limit development to 14 games if you want a more even field.

I think the main problem is Division 2. Think of the game as a food chain, with the Elites at the top. The developers designed the game work to best when all the worlds were full and they are not. By the time you get from Elites -> BCS -> Non-BCS -> D1AA -> D2 the coaching pool is so thinned out that there are virtually no predators for the top D2 teams. The vision system they designed wasn't supposed to have such a large impact, because in theory most of the new players you could see would be recruited by teams in the higher division anyway.

I am a newbie coach ...1 season in DIII and almost 3 in DII in one world and opening a couple of other teams now in other worlds... I love the recruiting.

I agree that the teams that have been here longer have a greater advantage than newbie coaches BUT in my opinion.... no matter what game you play with multiple players, the players that have been around the longest have and should have the advantage. This does not discourage me but only becomes a challenge to make me want to scratch and claw my way up to be competitive with the top coaches. As in any game the challenge is the fun part.... if the game was easy it would be boring.

PS Hey bigpoppa throw me a bone and be easy on me in the CC.....

Akua, I agree player development is a benefit and actually I did reference IQ gains by players of what I call super teams. You may have more insight on what is required to have the top vision but my experience just doesn't follow what you have outlined. I just finished recruiting with a team that has averaged 14+ wins for quite a long time and the National Champion filled his 13 open scholarships with at least 12 recruits that were not in my vision. Some of those were in my back yard. Maybe I saw some he did not see. I don't know but my guess is that is not the case. As seasons ends in different worlds I keep seeing the same teams competing in the NCG. Once in awhile a new team pops up but not very often. Some worlds are more dominated than others. I also mentioned Rockne was a world that seemed to be a more competitive world but you may be one that starts to control that world. Jeffn made a good observation which may be spot on. It has been a good discussion and not much support to limit the advantages for those that have reached the dynasty level so maybe this is the way it should be. If WIS could somehow come up with a way of having the worlds at least 50% full I think all (well maybe not all) would enjoy more.

Ya I'm not saying it isn't an advantage but if you can stay in the 16 win range, then you can also crack the final four. It starts with a consistent quarterfinal appearance and then you just develop it into more with every recruit class. It takes consistency and game planning to pull out those upsets. Your Northern State team is there if you keep at it.

After posting that, I took a look at your teams to try and help figure out why you see it this way. Without having a lot of time, I noticed that your recruit rankings are better than I was picturing but your growth seemed off since your team rankings are not consistently gaining up. On further glance, your team build at Northern is really unique and I'm not sure if I could make it either with such a heavy senior class that graduates and then too young at quarterback to get through it. Double freshmen and a sophomore spells doom if you pass at all against those big teams. Your other team has upper class guys that are worse than the younger guys on certain spots. I'd prob suggest honing in on the development and building a solid roster more and then you will be great because your recruiting is good efforts are solid. .

Posted by akua29 on 2/19/2018 7:04:00 PM (view original):
After posting that, I took a look at your teams to try and help figure out why you see it this way. Without having a lot of time, I noticed that your recruit rankings are better than I was picturing but your growth seemed off since your team rankings are not consistently gaining up. On further glance, your team build at Northern is really unique and I'm not sure if I could make it either with such a heavy senior class that graduates and then too young at quarterback to get through it. Double freshmen and a sophomore spells doom if you pass at all against those big teams. Your other team has upper class guys that are worse than the younger guys on certain spots. I'd prob suggest honing in on the development and building a solid roster more and then you will be great because your recruiting is good efforts are solid. .

+1

This game is built on gathering small advantages that all contribute to the big picture. Two things to consider.

1. Only 1 exhibition games. All those Freshmen missed 2 games of development. Small things add up.

2. What's the best thing about Seniors? When they play their Senior year. By my count you have 31 Seniors in 3 years. Even if the roster is perfectly aligned, you can only have 22 starters. So 9 players will be backups on the bench that will have very minimal playtime. Yes that ratio is improved with 2 senior kickers. Div 2 doesn't need both a punter and a kicker. Small thing but ..

My rule, right or wrong. Both seniors and juniors should be starting. All of them. If they don't, the roster ratio isnt efficient.

You can have more than 22 starters. A lot more actually.

I will consider suggestions by both of you. Thank you. There are reasons for my apptoach with Northern. First come recruiting time there will be 1or 2 recruits in my 100 mile radius. If one is D2 quality I am really lucky. Last cycle I had a total of 59 in my 250 radius. Half those were not D3 quality. I usually have 60% to 70% of recruits I find acceptable to be more than 1000 miles away. So I guess everywhere I recruit I am poaching. My approach to recruiting is much different at Northern than at Mansfield. With 31 open I get a huge bankroll. Even with a huge bankroll I have to be judicious. So while some can send numerous scouting trips to find high growth guys I don’t feel I have that luxury. I think I have gotten ok at finding good players. One might suggest I find a different team but I have my reasons for being at this school.

If you ever want a different view or bounce an idea off on someone, my sitemail is open to ya. Both of your programs have their own unique challenges, but both can make it to where you want to.

I knew nothing about Northern until I just looked. Challenging is an appropriate word. Maybe your way is the best way to overcome those challenges. I haven't figured out how to deal with the same issue with Arizona.

Have you thought about Div 1A ? Two of your biggest concerns don't apply. Everyone has the same vision. The best teams only get one extra game. So no dynasties.