Posted by gillispie on 6/16/2022 12:15:00 PM (view original):
i agree that preferences aren't that strong. i don't really know how i feel about making them stronger.
one comment though, i think a lot of folks look at their own prefs and see good ones, and get more excited about that than they should - even given the weaker strengths about preferences. when i look at a preference slate, its not just about me but about the anonymous opponents i might face, and in that light, some good-looking pref slates (bunch of very goods and goods) are much less good-looking.
for example, if i'm an A prestige d1 school looking at a 5* with a wants success preference - sure, i have a good pref there. but so do virtually all of my prospective opponents, so i look at that as basically a wash. it does help a tad against like, C prestige and down teams who have more or less, no business on the recruit. similarly, if i'm 300 miles away on a close to home pref, i'm not necessarily even looking at that as a positive. sure, i have a 'good' pref, but most folks who are 400+ miles away, they won't even consider this recruit due to cost and pref. my most likely opponent is going to have me beat.
this would come up all the time when chap and i were co-coaching, he is much more about preferences than me, and we would spend a lot of time going through this same thought process. he'd be like, we have good prefs on player X - and sure enough, we'd have like 3 greens and a blue. but i'd often be like hey, to me, this looks like 0 advantage over a reasonable prospective opponent, which is certainly better than all the cases where we are disadvantaged, but i'm not expecting any advantage when this becomes a battle, either.
anyway, i think across the board, when i talk to folks, they get excited about good pref slates without considering the opponent enough, and therefore, expect advantages when their actual advantage is none or minimal. when you actually have a serious preference advantage over an opponent, they do matter a good bit.
I wish I could quote like three of your posts on here gil, your post on learning through D3 and D2 (especially back before the recent d1 hiring logic change) is exactly what I've believed those smaller human population divisions are for.
Regarding the preferences matter though, this does seem like a problem in recruiting for coaches if it's prevalent. I used to keep a record of the various offenses, defenses, conf. strength, etc. of all my nearby, similar or higher prestige schools to see who was likely to be a challenge, because it really is more about how you compare instead of how closely you match up with the recruit's preferences in a vacuum.
If anything, based on the above comments, it seems like maybe having players on the draft board should have some type of value in preferences for recruiting?
For example, if a preference was added for let's say "NBA Draft Success" that adds in recent drafted players and projected draft spots of current players, then coaches with draftable talent are less penalized for actually improving those players, and EEs can be less detrimental overall.
FWIW I haven't had any issue with the recruiting changes after the D1 surge took place, seems to me that it does just make D1 (and I assume the lower divisions) a more competitive battlefield for recruits. The comment above about putting together a "perfect team of imperfect players" has never been more true than with this new level of recruiting competition imo. Then again, I only have one team in one world, so I know a lot of the other coaches here have more experience with the impact of recent changes.