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What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

Feb. 04, 2009 – National Signing Day. The best offseason day in all of sports.

While I used to readily give this label to NFL Draft day, excessive media hype, substance-light coverage and an influx of under-informed fan know-it-alls have soured the once sweet taste of that special weekend in May.

National Signing Day, like college football itself, is much more of a niche product than the NFL and the NFL Draft. Fan conversations, online or otherwise, tend to be smarter and more detailed. The coverage, particularly by sites like Rivals and Scout is unparalleled. The slightly under-the-radar nature of the whole event makes it that much more enjoyable to the hardcore college football fan.

Reveling in the nine-hour ESPNU coverage this past Wednesday, all of the fanfare got me thinking: How can the NCAA Football series better emulate the landscape of modern college football recruiting?

Recruiting is part of what makes college football a unique brand. While the new system introduced in NCAA 08 is a step in the right direction, it is still a mere shell of the real-life system that it is supposed to emulate. In the future, a static and watered-down recruiting system will be just as detrimental to the series as poor on-field play -- after all the Online Dynasty era has begun. Simply put, the fun of the competition must now extend beyond head-to-head games and into the virtual recruiting realm.


Minus a few very small tweaks, the menus we have now...we had years ago.

The Current System: Miscellaneous Notes and Flaws

Any veteran of the NCAA series can tell you that the current recruiting system is leagues beyond the old point-assignment system. Simulating the system of limited phone calls, on-campus/in-home visits, promises and coach integrity have given the Dynasty mode new life. Still, the system needs to mature.

While the game is really good at allowing gamers to tailor their pitches and sway recruits to their liking, it is devoid of the emotional volatility that exists in real recruiting. The "football face" that pops up during recruiting calls is supposed to emulate recruit emotion; however, it often seems to serve the sole purpose of monitoring time for phone calls. Throughout countless dynasties, I have yet to decipher a true "rule of thumb" when it comes to the football face. Leaving the face happy, neutral or angry has little effect on your ability to land the recruit, just so long as you win games and satisfactorily match up recruit priorities with program strengths. It is a nice attempt, but serves little purpose beyond the aesthetic.

The current system also allows you to suddenly lose recruits without warning. Soft verbals can turn into de-commits very quickly, especially when recruiting against human opponents. This is realistic, as nearly 20 percent of this year’s top 100 recruits balked at their initial verbal commitments. However, the warning-less manner in which this occurs in the game is far from perfect. Thanks to the Internet, fans often know when a committed player is being courted by a competitor. It stands to reason that the coaches, who are on the front lines of the recruiting battle, would be the first to know of such activities. There will always be some surprises, but in the real world, very few of these commitment betrayals occur without some advanced warning. The game should reflect such a dynamic in these situations.

The main system "improvements" in '09 were, in my opinion, aimed in the wrong direction. Last year, EA developers presented gamers with ways to streamline the process via features like Quick Call and CPU assistance. Sadly, many sports games -- particularly EA Sports games -- yearn for the casual gamer, and these new tweaks made it nauseatingly evident. Considering the over-the-top, hardcore nature of most college football fans (and NCAA gamers), it seems counter-productive to dumb down the product for the masses, at least in this department.

So where do we go from here? I have got some superb ideas.


These guys...they just don't feel alive sometimes.


Inject Some Humanity

While logistically sound in its simulation of the recruiting process, the current NCAA Football recruiting system is rather monotone, if not inanimate.

While the "football-face" icon scratches the surface of recruiting emotion, it is far from satisfactory. To remedy this situation, I propose a kind of "Rapport Meter" be assigned to each recruit on your board. The more you talk to a recruit -- especially when appealing to his high priorities -- the higher your rapport becomes with said recruit. There should be a balance, however, as in the words of Tommy Tubberville on ESPNU, you never want to "overcook" a recruit. Calling too often or taking too much of a recruit’s time could damage your rapport with him and hurt your chances.

Maintaining this rapport with recruits will play a pivotal role in maintaining their interest level, and will also give you an advanced warning when your competition is making a strong play to steal one of your coveted targets. The more plugged in you are to a recruit, the more likely you are to know if his verbal commitment is in jeopardy.

An extension of this system would be to give recruits a Morale Ranking -- similar to Madden -- once they become signed players. This morale ranking would affect their in-game performance and career progression. Such a system would be linked to playing time, coach promises and in-game performance. In a sense, it would give players personality. High or low morale could also play a role in simulating "bust" or "break-out" recruits, something we have not yet seen in NCAA Football.


This guy is an athlete...actually both are.  Why not in NCAA?

Make ATHs, Athletes

One of my biggest problems with the current recruiting system is its treatment of athlete prospects. Aside from height, weight and vague letter-grade criteria for certain skill rankings, we are given next to no real information about these prospects.

Recruiting them is always a crap-shoot. Other than speculation, we really have no way of knowing what position might be the best fit for these prospects. More often than not, they are only suited for one position, with a 10-15 point drop-off in the OVR department for all other positions. Thus, they are an enigma that fails to fit logically into your recruiting game plan.

First and foremost, the game should tell you specifically what position(s) they play in high school. This would be extremely helpful when shaping your recruiting board to fill specific needs. Secondly, depending on the level (5-star, 4-star, etc.) of the athletes, some should be astute at multiple positions, with little drop-off. For instance, a 5-star athlete who primarily plays quarterback in high school, might be a viable option at WR or HB in the college game. The luxury of recruiting an athlete is flexibility, and the game should treat it as such.

Finally, and this applies to all recruits, it would be helpful if, each week, the game gave you simulated HS statistics for each recruit. This would not only go a long way towards determining the skill set of athlete recruits, it would also be a nice touch when tracking recruits. Praising their on-field achievements during a phone call (provided this was an option) could also play into the aforementioned "Rapport Meter."


Where's the love for system based recruiting?  Coaching philosphy anyone?

Make Your System Matter

I can only think of one thing that the old recruiting system had over the new one: "Coaching Philosophy."

I must credit my college roommate and future best man FatJoe399 for bringing this to my attention today. The offensive and defensive systems that you run need to play a major part in recruiting. At the very least, they should help to determine what recruits are initially interested in your style of play. Do you drop back and air it out? Selling your program to pocket passers should be a breeze. Have a fast, attacking defensive scheme? Stocking your roster with young pass-rushing ends and hard-hitting DBs should come easy.

While the current "Pro-Factory" pitch does this to an extent -- if you have noticed, your ranking in this category will vary from position to position -- it fails to reach the level or realism that I want. This could be easily corrected with a special pitch called "Star Potential" or something thereabouts. The availability of this pitch would be based purely upon your playcalling tendencies and current player statistics, and would only be applicable to relevant positions. Fore example, say you run a smash-mouth I-formation offense that often yields big numbers in the running game. The "Star Potential" pitch would become available to HBs and offensive linemen. Or if you like to throw the ball all over the field Texas Tech style, the pitch would become available to top QBs and WRs.

Speaking of Special Pitches...

I know the horse is dead, but I am going to keep beating it.

There need to be unique pitches that are only available to certain schools so they can serve as trump cards in certain recruiting situations. Other than the aforementioned "Star Potential" pitch, the two special pitches that absolutely must be included are "Historical/Premiere Program" and "Program on the Rise." True, the former is already available to a degree ("Program Prestige") but it does not quite do what it should.

In terms of the interface, it would probably be logical to place these pitches on a sub-screen within the normal pitch screen. Of course, these pitches would be dynamic, and would only be available to teams with the correct criteria. Exceeding or failing to meet these criteria would affect the availability of a pitch the following year.

The main purpose of these special pitches would be to realistically skew recruiting towards the upper echelon of teams. While this would likely make things more difficult for those gamers whose favorite teams are less than stellar, it would make things substantially more realistic, and it would make those lower-tier teams claw through a few seasons before having the juice to land that big fish.


This game gets it...sometimes.  But seriously, where are the recruiting links?

Junior Recruits

Scouting recruiting classes of the future is just as important to college coaches as the class at hand. NCAA’s recruiting system would be wise to add this aspect by providing an abbreviated list of junior recruits at the beginning of each season.

The rules for recruiting junior athletes are substantially different from senior and junior-college recruits. Ideally, future editions of NCAA Football could provide a short list of the top junior recruits (namely 4- and 5-star guys) at the beginning of each dynasty season. Users could compose a short list of potential targets -- 10 would be a good number. Each of these 10 recruits would be "sent" recruiting materials at the beginning of each season, with one phone call allowed the following offseason so you can get a jump start on recruiting the following fall, and maybe even get some instant commitments (see: Texas).

An interesting twist on this system might be potential links to senior recruits, like family members or teammates, and could serve as an extension to the current Pipeline system. Want that junior 5-star RB from Dublin, Ohio? Recruit his teammate, who just so happens to be a 3-star defensive tackle this year, to help sway him. This should by no means be overdone, but it would be a neat little wrinkle should junior recruiting be added into the mix.

Signing Day

Yes, early commitments happen all the time. But many, MANY high school athletes wait until National Signing Day to formally fax in their letters of intent. Some of the lucky ones even get to make their announcements on ESPNU.

Signing Day is such as big part of the process that it is nothing short of tragic that EA’s developers have not found some way to include it, especially since they have the ESPN license. When doing anything to revamp the current recruiting system, National Signing Day has to be the top priority.

First and foremost, the system should be adjusted so the majority of recruits do not sign letters of intent until this day. In-season signings are commonplace in the current setup, but are generally pretty rare for most Division I programs in real life. There is a lot of haggling and positioning for recruits up until the final days of January. Postponing official signings until the end will heighten the drama and make the game more true-to-life.

Secondly, the offseason schedule should have a Signing Day mechanic that launches once the five-week call/visit schedule is complete, similar to the NFL Draft screen. A little war-room interface could be in place for this process. The game could even use its ESPN license to implement a press-conference sequence for some of the top-tier recruits on your list, showing a player choosing between two hats on a table. Maybe I am going a bit too far into a pipe-dream here, but hey, last-gen versions of the game had an animated Heisman presentation, right? I am no developer, but an animated press conference definitely seems doable.

I Showed You Mine

I have pretty lofty hopes for the future of NCAA’s recruiting. Maybe too lofty, as this article is more wish list than logic. But what do you all have to say about future recruiting possibilities?


NCAA Football 10 Videos
Member Comments
# 1 Bodizzy @ 02/06/09 02:19 PM
Boy, do I agree with you that NCAA needs to wage a full-on onslaught towards beefing up recruiting in the series. Your team's current roster, coaching staff (including coordinators and position coaches who actually influence player morale and ability), assistant recruiters, team history and prestige, and the head coach's personality should all intersect at an overall recruiting prowess for a school. You're right, the top-shelf programs should have a leg (or two) up on the smaller schools, and they should have the advantage for various reasons.

Personally, I would love to have a dynamic, RPG-style conversation system implemented to woo and negotiate recruits. A coach with a winning history, a top flight program at his fingertips, and a charming personality would have more dialog options and success rates than coaches who are at smaller schools, lack the personality, etc. But you could pick a small school, create a no-name coach, start winning some football games, and slowly accrue points to either consciously ascribe to your coach and assistants or that are automatically attributed to personnel and coaches based on how those points were accrued. Either way, it's something I would absolutely love.
 
# 2 Gossennator @ 02/06/09 02:21 PM
I never really thought about national signing day for NCAA 10. Just think how awesome it would be to have an OD where all 12 people are online trying to get top recruits. Maybe even committing somewere & going somewhere else. Instead of making it all day you can maybe tone it down to 1 hour or of your choosing.
 
# 3 Cane_Mutiny @ 02/06/09 02:24 PM
In-season signings aren't allowed by the NCAA, unless the recruit is from Junior College or Prep School or something like that. For high school recruits, NSD is the first day they can officially sign.

Still, you're right that it does seem like players "sign" their LOIs mid-season, because once they've committed. they never back down. For this reason, they need to revamp how committments work. There should occasionally be hard verbals like we see in the game, but more often there should be soft committments that can be switched faily easily. I know that there are "soft commits" occasionally in the game, but they're sort of arbitrary.

Soft committments need to be made into a bigger deal, since they are much more common early in the process than "absolutely no way I won't sign hard verbals."
 
# 4 thudias @ 02/06/09 02:26 PM
Great Ideas.
 
# 5 callmetaternuts @ 02/06/09 02:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bodizzy
Boy, do I agree with you that NCAA needs to wage a full-on onslaught towards beefing up recruiting in the series. Your team's current roster, coaching staff (including coordinators and position coaches who actually influence player morale and ability), assistant recruiters, team history and prestige, and the head coach's personality should all intersect at an overall recruiting prowess for a school. You're right, the top-shelf programs should have a leg (or two) up on the smaller schools, and they should have the advantage for various reasons.

Personally, I would love to have a dynamic, RPG-style conversation system implemented to woo and negotiate recruits. A coach with a winning history, a top flight program at his fingertips, and a charming personality would have more dialog options and success rates than coaches who are at smaller schools, lack the personality, etc. But you could pick a small school, create a no-name coach, start winning some football games, and slowly accrue points to either consciously ascribe to your coach and assistants or that are automatically attributed to personnel and coaches based on how those points were accrued. Either way, it's something I would absolutely love.
I definitely agree with most of these ideas. We need:

- Diamonds in the rough and busts

- More drama on NSD, not as many recruits committing early

- A way to gauge what other teams are doing

- Make the off-season visits matter. Dont have recruits commit so early where my visit in Week 4 never happens
 
# 6 BCTiger8 @ 02/06/09 03:16 PM
I really argee with the ATH section. I hate recruiting a 5 star ATH only to find out he's a 75+ QB a 60 Safety and 40 in everything else, especially when I already have several quality QBs. I think one thing that should be adjusted is the way ATHs are presented when selecting a final position. One of the big thing with athletes is that they have various skill sets that can be utilized all over the football field, but usually they have "raw" talent which hasn't been refined yet. I think showing the individual's potential rating at a specific position would be a better way to gauge the final position. Scrambling type QB? Might only have a 80 potential at QB but may have a 85 at safety with some good coaching (which is a separate issue all together). I just think there needs to be refinement with regards to ATHs in recruiting. There needs to be a better way to address these recruits, especially as they are widely coveted throughout the game.
 
# 7 NikB13 @ 02/06/09 04:11 PM
All the RPG style and hat choosing ideas would go a long way with the recruting presentation. the new style is great, but if they had some drama towards NSD it woul be spectactular.
 
# 8 jbrew2411 @ 02/06/09 04:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BCTiger8
I really argee with the ATH section. I hate recruiting a 5 star ATH only to find out he's a 75+ QB a 60 Safety and 40 in everything else, especially when I already have several quality QBs. I think one thing that should be adjusted is the way ATHs are presented when selecting a final position. One of the big thing with athletes is that they have various skill sets that can be utilized all over the football field, but usually they have "raw" talent which hasn't been refined yet. I think showing the individual's potential rating at a specific position would be a better way to gauge the final position. Scrambling type QB? Might only have a 80 potential at QB but may have a 85 at safety with some good coaching (which is a separate issue all together). I just think there needs to be refinement with regards to ATHs in recruiting. There needs to be a better way to address these recruits, especially as they are widely coveted throughout the game.
I'm with you on this one. I hate to get an ATH and the only position he can play is corner. Most ATH in real life play both ways in high school and return kicks. I would like to see ATH's that could be good on both sides of the ball. I hate the QB Ath's because that is all they can play. That is not an ATH. Look at Russell Sheppard who signed with LSU he could play QB, RB, WR, and made on D. I don't see that in this game.
 
# 9 TrevJo @ 02/06/09 04:38 PM
NCAA has so many other issues that need to be fixed aside from revamping recruiting. They have too many requests for bells and whistles to fix something that isn't broken without sacrificing quality.

The only problem is that recruiting is too easy. And recruiting is too easy for one simple reason: The CPU is ******** at assessing its needs.
If a CPU school has 1 good LT and 2 lousy RTs coming back, the CPU will not put much focus into recruiting LTs, because they have fulfilled the roster minimum.
Now EA should listen carefully because this is the part that concerns them: The roster minimums need to be increased to 4 or 5 for positions like tackle, guard, defensive end, etc. And the CPU needs to be smarter about recognizing weaknesses and needs for the future. Fix this!

A further problem along the same lines (but not directly related to recruiting) is that a CPU team with two 85 LGs and two 70 RGs will start one of each instead of starting both LGs.
 
# 10 TrevJo @ 02/06/09 04:44 PM
You guys are nuts on the ATH thing. Recognizing what position an ATH is going to be good at is as easy as breathing.
 
# 11 NikB13 @ 02/06/09 04:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevJo
You guys are nuts on the ATH thing. Recognizing what position an ATH is going to be good at is as easy as breathing.
Ya i kno which is why i dont like it. ATH should be able to play a multitude of positions at a high level. not just one and the rest crap.
 
# 12 hustle55 @ 02/06/09 04:58 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NikB13
Ya i kno which is why i dont like it. ATH should be able to play a multitude of positions at a high level. not just one and the rest crap.


I agree totally an ATH should be able to play a lot of different positions.
 
# 13 mattbooty @ 02/06/09 05:00 PM
A couple thoughts.

1. on the ATH thing, I don't think the problem is so much that you can't tell what position they will play, but that they will only be good at one position (maybe 2). Realistically an ATH should be able to move between QB, WR, HB, CB, S, etc with a minimal drop in skills. Most ATH in 2009 are say a 72 rated WR, a 60 CB, and 40 at everything else... at that point why not just make the recruit a WR in the first place, why are they even listed as an ATH.

2. I have always thought it would be great to earmark 10 junior HS players that would automatically give them a bump next season when you actually recruit them. For instance you see the juniors, and whichever ones you pick they will bump you up a few spots on their list when recruiting starts (potentially get students interested in your program when they wouldn't have been otherwise).

3. I love the idea that very few Hard commits happen until signing day. What I think should happen is any pre-signing day would be Softs, but the big change is once a player soft commits, all other schools should fall off their board. You can still monitor that player during the season, and if another school appears on their board (which would happen with maybe 20% of soft's) that tells you that they are starting to rethink their commitment and you need to start throwing more time at them to get them to hold to their commitment.
 
# 14 TrevJo @ 02/06/09 05:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NikB13
Ya i kno which is why i dont like it. ATH should be able to play a multitude of positions at a high level. not just one and the rest crap.
I forgot to comment on this aspect. But in my experience I have not seen ATH that are only good at one position. I always see them maybe 2 or 4 points ahead of their next best position in their overall ranking, I don't know where you guys are seeing this guys that are 10+ points worse at their second best position.
 
# 15 stewart#28 @ 02/06/09 05:18 PM
You could also add a HS All American game and have 10-15 players declare at that game...put the 3 hats out and pick...I would like to see a separate area for recruiting JC players..not sure how it would work?...The idea of having a recruiting impact rating for you OC and DC would be nice...i.e Chip Kelly at Oregon has a strong impact on skill position players..and love the connection factor...brother goes to Miami, your younger brother has a better shot being a Hurricane.
 
# 16 wisgator @ 02/06/09 05:44 PM
This is a list of things I would like to see implemented.

-HS All-American game.

-Early Enrollee's.

-More hesitant decision making for higher caliber recruits.

-More Non-Qualifiers.

-A separate list of JUCO and PREP propects.

-Give some academic numbers to the recruits. Teams like Notre Dame, Northwestern and so on, have high academic standards that the staff needs to adhere to. There are relaxed standards for athletes, but not all top prospects have the academic pedigree to make the cut at those institutions.

-Fluctuating recruit ratings. Scout and Rivals come out with revised rankings throughout the year. The best example I can give is Cierre Wood (ND signee). If I'm correct, he was the top-rated RB according to Rivals, and garnered a 5-star rating. Now he's a 4-star and has fallen to the bottom half of the Rivals top 100. Another example is Greg Reid (FSU signee). He was a Florida verbal way back in the spring of 2008 and I believe he was a lower 4-star in the first Rivals rankings. He shot up to a 5-star after his performance in the Under-Armor AA game where he had 3-int's. I would like to see the stock of some players rise or fall.
 
# 17 asu666 @ 02/06/09 05:47 PM
I miss discipline the most. It would be nice to have that be a factor so a lower tier program could take a gamble on guys that may see a lot of pine time for disciplinary reasons, but would otherwise be too good to go to a lower tier program.
 
# 18 hotboydttjr @ 02/07/09 12:25 AM
I like the ideas being thrown out here. I would like to the rosters expanded to 100 players per team.
 
# 19 jfsolo @ 02/07/09 02:59 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevJo
NCAA has so many other issues that need to be fixed aside from revamping recruiting. They have too many requests for bells and whistles to fix something that isn't broken without sacrificing quality.

The only problem is that recruiting is too easy. And recruiting is too easy for one simple reason: The CPU is ******** at assessing its needs.
If a CPU school has 1 good LT and 2 lousy RTs coming back, the CPU will not put much focus into recruiting LTs, because they have fulfilled the roster minimum.
Now EA should listen carefully because this is the part that concerns them: The roster minimums need to be increased to 4 or 5 for positions like tackle, guard, defensive end, etc. And the CPU needs to be smarter about recognizing weaknesses and needs for the future. Fix this!

A further problem along the same lines (but not directly related to recruiting) is that a CPU team with two 85 LGs and two 70 RGs will start one of each instead of starting both LGs.
Agree 1000%. The people who created the code, database, A.I., whatever, that is used for CPU recruiting and roster management made mistakes that have haunted the dynasty mode practically since its inception over a decade ago.

I've asked for this bolded part to be fixed in some wish list every year for at least the last ten years, but not this year. I've given up hope of ever seeing it fixed, since it obviously is a low-to-non existent priority for the D team, or way too resource intensive for the perceived limited impact fixing it would have.
 
# 20 mwjr @ 02/07/09 12:27 PM
Quote:
While I used to readily give this label to NFL Draft day, excessive media hype, substance-light coverage and an influx of under-informed fan know-it-alls have soured the once sweet taste of that special weekend in May.
*sigh*

The NFl Draft is in April. No offense, but you lose credibility when you can't even get some of the basics correct.
 

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