Does anyone know if number of wins impacts team prestige or is it mainly RPI that is factored in? I realize wins are important for better RPI but I don’t know if scheduling easy wins would benefit me early on to get out of a D- prestige.

Wins do impact prestige. Not as much as post-season success, but they are definitely a large factor.

Yep, it’s wins and post-season success.

Posted by tdiddy3 on 3/3/2018 8:03:00 PM (view original):
Does anyone know if number of wins impacts team prestige or is it mainly RPI that is factored in? I realize wins are important for better RPI but I don’t know if scheduling easy wins would benefit me early on to get out of a D- prestige.

Yes, I would definitely schedule for wins and try to get the prestige up to somewhere in the C levels if possible. Anything and everything you can do to get out of the D-minus dregs.

I have evidence here that RPI impacts success more than wins do. After a 9-18 season(pre 3.0) and 67 RPI, we went from a C to a C+

87 thewizard17 2-25 2-12 0-12 0-1 0-16 230 43 C
86 thewizard17 9-18 4-6 5-11 0-1 4-12 67 2 C+
85 thewizard17 15-15 6-5 8-9 1-1 6-10 53 32 C PI (2nd Round)
84 thewizard17 12-15 10-8 2-6 0-1 3-13 255 256 C-
83 thewizard17 4-23 2-13 2-9 0-1 1-15 167 24 C-

Posted by thewizard17 on 3/4/2018 2:46:00 AM (view original):
I have evidence here that RPI impacts success more than wins do. After a 9-18 season(pre 3.0) and 67 RPI, we went from a C to a C+

87 thewizard17 2-25 2-12 0-12 0-1 0-16 230 43 C
86 thewizard17 9-18 4-6 5-11 0-1 4-12 67 2 C+
85 thewizard17 15-15 6-5 8-9 1-1 6-10 53 32 C PI (2nd Round)
84 thewizard17 12-15 10-8 2-6 0-1 3-13 255 256 C-
83 thewizard17 4-23 2-13 2-9 0-1 1-15 167 24 C-

Alblack (and others) have posted tickets from CS where they stated the only two things that impact prestige are # wins and post-season success. At D1 baseline prestige obviously plays a role but it's more of a 'how much will my prestige change this off-season' type of role. This was also the older CS that seemed to know what they were talking about. Now, as mentioned above wins directly impact RPI.

To answer one of the OPs original questions the number where I always seemed to notice a difference was 20 wins.

Posted by thewizard17 on 3/4/2018 2:46:00 AM (view original):
I have evidence here that RPI impacts success more than wins do. After a 9-18 season(pre 3.0) and 67 RPI, we went from a C to a C+

87 thewizard17 2-25 2-12 0-12 0-1 0-16 230 43 C
86 thewizard17 9-18 4-6 5-11 0-1 4-12 67 2 C+
85 thewizard17 15-15 6-5 8-9 1-1 6-10 53 32 C PI (2nd Round)
84 thewizard17 12-15 10-8 2-6 0-1 3-13 255 256 C-
83 thewizard17 4-23 2-13 2-9 0-1 1-15 167 24 C-

Team prestige is based on a 4 season window.

That 9 win season was replacing a 2 win season in season 82. That is why your prestige went up. Then having a 2 win season replace a 4 win one in season 87 made it go back down.

Scheduling advise to the OP: Schedule the best teams you can beat. When WIS shows the point spread and your favored by more than 10, you scheduled too easy. Likewise, if you're an underdog by more than 10, you're playing a team that is likely too tough.

from an earlier developer chat:

What all effects the rise/fall in prestige? Conference standings, national tournament wins, postseason invitation wins I assume, will anything else like recruiting class rankings, kids getting drafted, games vs top 25 schools, kids on the all conference/all american list effect team prestige at all?

Currently we look at every game a team plays that season (location, result, margin of victory or loss, strength of opponent), RPI, national ranking, conference-tournament performance, post-season bids, post-season wins and players drafted.