Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)

[ncaa14_legend]

ive started with 1 star programs and took them to the top, many 5 star and 4 star commits in early years, unable to count the number of #1 classes. typically sign 20-25 recruits. once, while working on Notre Dame dynasty, i had 11 years straight, #1 class. here are my secrets

do not schedule any "cupcake" games, all games unless it is a conference game must be top 25 or better at the beginning of the season. i prefer to schedule top 15 ranked teams later than week 8-10 in hopes of scheduling top recruits to visit during that time. typically i like to leave week 1 as a bye week, week 2- game, week 3- bye, week 4- game and so on until i have 12 good challenging games. i never have a bye week late in the season if i can help it,(later than week 8)
PRESEASON RECUITING
1. RECRUITING BOARD MUST BE FULL AT ALL TIMES, even though you're not assigning points to all the recruits they still progress and it'll make more sense later.

2. i don't waste time or points with scouting. i barely scout in general unless its late in the season(past week 9 and its necessary) DEFINITELY scout in preseason when you have 1000 points to scout before recruiting starts. the other teams will scout for you decently well weeks 1-6 and if you pay attention, you'll understand. the 5 star 6'3" QB that's going to turn your program around, WILL NOT be left at <25% interest if his overall is high.

3. i go through the recruits looking for ONLY the top recruits in each position, adding 2-3 players at most for each position depending on team need, depth and position.

4. if my school is number one on their interest list i offer them a scholarship right off the bat prior to my week 1 bye in hopes of insta-commit. only offer a scholarship to recruits once your school is 1st in their interest. saves points. in week 15 of season offer every recruit on your board a scholarship.

5. after advancing to week 2, go through all the recruits on your board and remove all recruits that say you're 1500 points or more behind. if any current recruits on your board changed their interest in your school to be number 1 offer them a scholarship. schedule visits as needed and try to get all offensive guys in a couple weeks span and all defensive guys in different couple weeks. this allows you to focus primarily on goals for having an excellent offensive or defensive game. its always been difficult for me to do both during the same game.

6. go to search, filter 3* or above, <25% commit, no deal breakers.
all lineman, tightends and linebackers are then sorted according to squat, then look at their speed, then bench.
all skill guys(HB, WR, ATH, CB,FS,SS) sort by speed, then squat, then bench
sometimes there are hulk sized ATH, its good to sort them according to squat as well, you can find a FB,LB,TE AND ALL LINEMAN by doing this.
remember you only want the top recruits in order to turn your program around. i try my hardest to never add a recruit to my board that is less than 3star talent. 3star recruits typically have an overall rating higher than 62-64, meaning they'll be an 80-87+ by the time they're a senior, THATS THE GOAL.

7. i then repeat this process week after week. after advancing past week 2 and for the remainder of the season i only keep recruits on my board that say im 1000 or less points away from the leader.

8. keep an eye on other teams interest in the top recruits, like i said if they're ranked in the top 5 of their position and no team is showing interest, the recruits interest in all schools is holding steady, except for your school if you have them on your board, REMOVE THEM ASAP. CHANCES ARE THEY'RE A BUST.

9. go after the 4star ATH and above fairly hard but i dont add too many 3star ATH. i like to have skill guys (QB, RB, WR, ATH, TE, MLB, OLB, CB, FS, and SS) with an overall rating of 68+ coming in as a freshman, this will help ensure that happens.

10. only put 250-450 points per recruit in weeks 1-3 unless hes a top skill guy, sometimes DE falls into this category. once I'm into weeks 3-4 and later, I'll appoint all the points i can to the remaining tops recruits on my board. its key to not get stuck on a recruit for whatever reason and to take the most gifted/skilled players that are interested in playing for you. this cuts down on the amount of transfers in general, in or out.

11. once you feel you have a recruit pretty much on lock down, which i consider to be +1000 from the team in 2nd. drop the points down to only 50,100,150,200. this will free up points for other recruits but watch all recruits closely, anything can change week to week. i typically start to cut back on the points as my school pulls away from the 2nd place school. 250,300,400 somewhere in there, no need to be blasting him with 700 points.

12. once you're program is rated 4+ star prestige this method is almost unfair to the competition. you'll land 5+ 5star recruits yearly, 10+ 4star recruits yearly and fill the rest in with the 3star guys.

in summary,
this method is based solely off the recruits interest in your school, but you're trying to be the next present day Alabama so you want the best recruits possible. just like in real life some of the best recruits slip through the cracks unnoticed and those are the guys you're going to land. and because you're landing these high quality recruits regularly with ease your program becomes unstoppable, NO LIE. one year with Clemson, switched them to the SEC, there wasn't a single player on the team with an overall of <72.

[Justb__]

I have read through this entire thread try to get more ideas for my 1-star program. Just started as San Jose State, any tips you have would be great!

What minimum speed, height, weight etc do you look for?
As well for the combine stats you look for?

[Rieux]

Quote: Originally Posted by Justb__

I have read through this entire thread try to get more ideas for my 1-star program. Just started as San Jose State, any tips you have would be great! What minimum speed, height, weight etc do you look for? As well for the combine stats you look for?

Weight is sadly meaningless in NCAA 14, a 190lb left tackle rated 95ovr will outperform a 290lb left tackle rated lower. Weight does determine draft eligibility for some positions, like height. And fortunately height does play a role in the gameplay. If you were asking a specific person, my apologies, but fwiw I usually just try to target players of height/weight that meet the criteria for getting drafted, to make sure all of my best players will eventually get drafted and boost my prestige/pro potential/etc. Here's a thread with the draft's height/weight requirements.

If a player I sign has an unrealistic weight - i.e. a 4-star DT who only weighs ~250, I'll just edit his weight to a more realistic number. I don't have any qualms about doing so since it doesn't affect the gameplay anyway. As for a player's measurables, just in case you didn't know, 40 time will tell you a player's exact SPD rating, bench press will tell you his STR, and squat will tell you (depending on if he plays offense or defense and is a lineman or a skill position) either his Break Tackle rating (offensive skill players), his Run Block rating (o-linemen), or his Tackle rating (defensive players). This thread has all the values that correspond to specific ratings in the "Recruiting Info" table - it's for NCAA 13 but, someone correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it's still accurate for NCAA 14.

Again, apologies if you already knew any of that!

One tip I read recently that's very helpful when (re)building a 1-star program is to not recruit up to the maximum 70-player cap, but rather stay around the 64-67 range - that way, you'll get incoming transfers from other schools during the offseasons, who will be a huge improvement 99% of the time. If you always have the max 70 players you'll never get any transfers.

And one other thing you probably already know, but it bears repeating as it's probably the most important all-around tip for playing Dynasty in NCAA 14 - there are a handful of 4- and 5-star prospects that, for whatever reason, go completely unrecruited every year. You can totally cheese the system by sorting the recruits by locked % around weeks 5-7 - the guys under 20% aren't being recruited at all and you can pretty much take them for free. It's the easiest way to take a 1-star cupcake school to the nat'l title in just a couple of years - so don't do it!

Nothing will kill the realism and the fun faster building up a 1-star school than loading up on Top 100 prospects every year that wouldn't even bother opening up an envelope in the mail from your school IRL before chucking it in the trash. You don't have to play with super strict recruiting restrictions like a lot of guys around here do, but abusing the unrecruited players will make a dynasty go stale faster than anything else.

GL and have fun!

[OleABiss21]

Hey guys, currently in a OD with some of my friends. I’m trying to figure out all the hidden clues and tricks so I can blow my dudes out of the water in recruiting. Have been reading through the thread but not a lot of people pin pointing what clues and tricks are. If someone could pm me and have a discussion with me that be great

[TomahawkNation]

Quote: Originally Posted by ncaa14_legend

the other teams will scout for you decently well weeks 1-6 and if you pay attention, you'll understand. the 5 star 6'3" QB that's going to turn your program around, WILL NOT be left at <25% interest if his overall is high.

Excellent breakdown altogether but I completely disagree with this statement. I've found many gems each season at the very bottom of interest % that go completely un-recruited by any other school for whatever reason. My current starting QB was a 78 OVR ATH (mid 80's speed) who's interest was 16% when I first came across him in week 5 or 6

[ZN30]

I'm actually thinking of running a dynasty where I don't recruit until Week 7 and just go after the guys who are under 25%.

Quote: Originally Posted by TomahawkNation

Excellent breakdown altogether but I completely disagree with this statement. I've found many gems each season at the very bottom of interest % that go completely un-recruited by any other school for whatever reason. My current starting QB was a 78 OVR ATH (mid 80's speed) who's interest was 16% when I first came across him in week 5 or 6

Sent from my SM-G965U using Operation Sports mobile app

[NCAAFBall00]

I was just wondering if there was certian stats that we should be looking at certain players? For example Besides Throwing power and Acc whats else for QB? what for RB etc

[GGGswim]

Been playing this game long enough, but still find I'm learning a few things here and there (look up How Many Points Does It Take To Land A Recruit? on the Reddit thread; several things there I didn't know even after all these yrs)
Anyway....OL from the Athletes board. Ideas on identifying?
This past season I was on the hunt for DEs and had a few ATHs lined up for what I thought would be good enough if I didn't get my top DE choice.
ATHs were 80-something strength, speed/accel were actually in low-80s, squat was high-600s for one and ~640 for the other. PMV, FMV and BSH were all lower than I normally recruit, but as said, these were for just-in-case.
Well, got the DE I wanted in the offseason, but had picked up these two ATHs in-season.
Figuring I was maybe even going to cut one loose (we all have our own House Rules), but when I was in POS changes ran them both through the whole string and WHAM, they both came up high 70s OL (80 C one of them), compared to low-70s DEs.
So...what was I missing in identifying them more correctly? Don't think I've ever had an OL with speed above something in the low-70s at best. I just don't think there was anything in the numbers that was telling me to look at as OL other than strength and squat, which are easily construed as strength and tackle.
Was that it, though? High strength and squat, but perhaps not matching PMV, FMV and BSH?