What NCAA Recruiting Should Be

[JeffHCross]

Great write-up, but one disagreement. *MOST* college football fans are not hardcore. *MOST* NCAA gamers are not hardcore. I went to Ohio State and was once of the few (even counting that the majority of my friends were student section members) that cared about either real-life recruiting or NCAA. The majority of the NCAA gamers I met were pick-up-and-play-ers. One of them even went so far to edit the Ohio State team to all 99 OVRs so he could dominate.

The simulation market is ridiculously small compared to the casual market. I agree that EA could and should do a better job of courting both, but they do have to give options for the casual gamer.

Look at it another way. Even the most hardcore NCAA gamer might not be interested in recruiting. He might just like playing the games. You've got to have options for all.

But otherwise, very good article.

[JeffHCross]

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.

Not so. I recruited a 3-star athlete who's ratings were show as if he were an FS. He was a 72 at FS, and 70 or so at CB. Normal, right?

He's an 81 at QB. 88 THP, 80 THA.

[Sportsbuck]

I'd like to expand on the ATH point Chris.

Make it so that players aren't just good at one position when they come in, make them be able to play at multiple. Not all players end up playing at where they came in. For example, Anthony Gonzalez and Ted Ginn, Jr. were both recruited as CB's and ended up being first round picks at WR. They should obviously have a position where they are listed at but they should be able to have good ratings at the other spots as well.

[LSUtiga21]

Love this article. For me, I could play an entire game devoted to recruiting. I agree with all points made in this article, but would like to expand on some. I think the College Basketball 2K games of last gen did a great job with recruiting schedules.

I don't like how there are 5 weeks after the season where a lot of the recruiting is done. Why not have a daily calendar for the enitre year, which could play a part in the actual game as well as recruiting. Schedules could be made on a daily basis as to when practices were, when weight training begins, and what coaches and assistants would be involved in recruiting business, such as phone calls and visits. Maybe you send some assistants off to meet with recruits on a Monday of a game week, but this would hamper the positions they coach in terms of gameplanning for that week. Or as a head coach, you could schedule a few in home meetings on an off day. And all of this could be time sensitive. If you are a coach in Louisiana and an in-home visit takes an hour or two, it would be feasible that multiple visits could be made in one day by the same coach if the recruits went to the same high school or lived in close proximity of each other. Or as a head coach, you could spend the first half of your day making phone calls while you spend the afternoon with the team at practice. The whole game would become much more strategic as a delicate balance would need to be struck in order to devote enough attention to recruits while not skimping on responsibilities to get the team in shape for gamedays. You would also be required to think critically. If you have your RB coach recruiting a kid in Florida while your head coach is recruiting a 5-star player in a nearby town, do you devote one whole day for your RB coach to visit his recruit and another separate day for the head coach to visit his, or do you comprimise and send your RB coach to meet with both on the same trip so that your head coach can stay with the team?

A day-by-day calendar would completely revamp the entire system with a much-needed facelift and provide a more realistic approach if it is combined with all of the suggestions in the article.

[ballaspence9493]

i agree with a couple people on here on the matter that there should be busts and jems. this is needed or else big schools become dominant in ncaa as years progress.

[lawsindell]

Some improvements I've been stewing on for a while, recruiting and otherwise:

- The ability to spend more time recruiting and less time practicing (or vice versa) if you so choose during the season. For example, if a season is totally shot for me, I would love to throw myself into recruiting to build for the future, but the fact is that I can't recruit any more than anyone else. You should have the option of neglecting your current team (with a corresponding risk that your play would suffer) in order to spend more time recruiting. This is absolutely a choice that real-life programs have to make every year and it would add a little variety to the seasons.

- The ability to work on certain things in practice during the season (and in the off-season, for that matter). For instance, one of my dynasty teams is the worst tackling team in NCAA history. Honestly, I've never seen anything quite like it. Even if I control the defensive player and lay into a diminutive running back full on, there's about a 75% chance I'm going to bounce right off of him. The problem is: how do you improve team tackling? You can't. You just have to get through the season and hope your recruiting and off-season improvements (which are totally random) solve the problem for you. I wish they'd take a cue from the NFL Head Coach game and allow you to focus on specific issues each week in practice. This would also address the ATH problem that everyone here seems to be dealing with. You could use practice to take an ATH who was an option QB in high school and turn him into the WR you need by spending time teaching him routes and running catching drills.

- Specific tasks for players. You should have a Game Strategy option each week where you can assign specific tasks to specific players that would override the play you call for that player. Besides the obvious benefit of correcting the ridiculous over-effectiveness of the option, it could help you deal with all sorts of things: a scrambling QB, a star WR, a dominant pass-rushing DE (if such a thing existed), etc. and then the other team would have to make adjustments instead of just relying on the same thing all game (a crime I'm as guilty of as anyone - even if I hate myself for it).

- Hiring and running a staff. How cool would it be to try and steal other gamers' offensive coordinators or hotshot recruiters? Or you could go out and hire the hot new DC and get some exotic new scheme by bringing him in. It would also be a way to help you improve specific areas of your team. Your team full of young, inexperienced LBs? Go out and hire Jim Ryan as your LB coach to turn them into All-Americans. Of course, you'd have to have a budget so you'd have to make choices and compromises, but, man, that would be awesome.

- In general, there should be more mid-week tasks for you to play with. Player discipline issues, booster issues, media issues, etc. The old "play, recruit, play, recruit, play, recruit, play, recruit" routine gets a little old - especially when recruiting sucks.

There's just a few thoughts I've had.

[hustle55]

Make ATHs, Athletes i really hope they do this in Ncaa 10

[NikB13]

Quote: Originally Posted by hustle55

Make ATHs, Athletes i really hope they do this in Ncaa 10

Me too. Your 100% right!!!