Views on Recruiting House Rules

[coyb54]

Hi all,



Was told that this community may find this of interest. I’ve typed it up and thought I would post.



I’ve been a college coach for a decade, leading recruiting departments for most of those. Our group likes to play to certain ideas that bend the realm of fictional and real. Neither way on that spectrum will be ultimately the right way of doing things. As this is still a game, and you should find the way to enjoy the game in the way that you decide to do so.

Before diving into the meat of the subject, some thoughts:
- - The game is awesome. It’s not perfect but it’s awesome. - There are frustrations(super sim freezes, polling.) Just be grateful we got this.
- - Adjust these ideas toward what you want in your experience. If you enjoy it, then that’s all that matters.
- - Losing recruits out of no where as a similar feel to how it happens in real life. It stings, and sometimes come out of no where.



What is this?
-- These are ideas and procedures of recruiting in the game. These ideas also prop up the thoughts of roster design, vertical alignment, and development of a full program ideal.
- - Use some of these ideas, use none of them. Create your own.

Recruiting Areas:
With 95% of the schools in the nation. Most of recruiting is isolated in certain areas. Historically, these battle grounds are crucial for success and failures of a program. National recruiting doesn’t necessarily happen for majority of the schools. While the growth of social media has changed the exposure of recruiting, schools still need to win in high profiled areas to find success.



Even with the larger schools, Alabama/Ohio State. You still see natural pipelines develop and getting into key areas are crucial for even those schools success. Assistants with deep connections and relationships are essential for the winning or losing of those top prospects in those areas.



Smaller schools don’t always have that luxury. They need to win in key areas close to their school. They only have a certain amount of staff that can cover as much ground as they can. You spread yourself too thin, you’ll never develop roots in areas. Pick the wrong areas, you’ll land the wrong recruits or not land the recruits that are of high enough quality. You have to make decisions on your focus of where you want to recruit.




Let’s look at some examples at some historical examples:



WVU(Rich Rod Era) – Focused on Maryland, In-State, poaching a few from OH and PA, then get the skill from Florida.


Virginia Tech – Win Virginia. Get into the Carolinas.
The game overall does a good job with this, especially with the deal breakers. Specifying the areas is a fun way of getting into specific areas. Would love to see this expanded into the future.

Here are some images from https://thedataface.com/2018/08/spor...e-football-map


Arizona -


This is a cool one to look at. You can clearly see what areas they focus in. Locally in Arizona, heavy Southern California, heavy Northern California, but also look at the specific areas in Texas.

Appalachian State -


I picked a smaller school, this is a cool regional recruiting one. Clearly see the pockets in NC, Western SC, and North Georgia. But also a small pocket in South Florida in the Miami region.

Oklahoma State -



Last one in the examples here is Oklahoma State. Clear East Texas pipeline, and focusing in on Oklahoma. I thought they would be more involved in the Kansas City area, but it was more Wichita on looking at it.

[coyb54]

Pipelines in the Game:
Let’s look at the pipeline areas in the game. We have broken them up into four tiers.



What we did was develop a system that aims to make you choose within your “budget”. You can’t put all your chips into gold tiered areas. It’s not feasible.

Here’s our FBS System(All in development, suggestions are welcomed)














Here’s our D2 System(Teambuilder) *This one is a work in progress. We are still finding the balance due to replacing the in game team and adopting those characteristics.






Each Program gets “25$” as your recruiting budget to start off with the buy areas. You can add or lose $$ depending on winning/losing. Or a roll of a dice.


What about transfers? Transfers are free game no matter the area. If you play by the recruiting areas, you can only recruit from the areas that you have purchased. Stings a little bit when that 5 star is not in the area that you purchased.


A note as well, the first year or two in game that you are doing this. You will feel overwhelmed. You won’t have recruits heavily interested in you in that area. Don’t panic, it takes time to build up. Especially if those are not areas you are ingrained in either. Go through, find prospects you like, and recruit them.




Recruiting Board/Ratios


The next part is building the board. I believe the game does a good job of building the board, but we try to take it a step further. Obviously a college recruiting board is much more complex and in depth but we don’t necessarily have to do that with this case.
1.

Building off needs and wants: This is a balancing act and one that can be difficult to manage. Playing the game with wear and tear, and injuries turned up makes this much more relevant. Needs are needs, and you absolutely need to recruit toward your needs. A want is a player that you truly want but you have a surplus in that spot. That player could be an in-state playmaker that you can not say no to.

Making that decision is key if you can bring him in or not. Another aspect is you need to upgrade a position, even if it’s not a need. Evaluate your roster, and you’ll get a feel after a few games that you need to upgrade in a spot.
2. Evaluating your areas for those upgraded players is essential too. You want to make a list to have them ready. You don’t want to be scrambling week 10 to find an upgrade. You already have a plan for that position if necessary.
3.
Ratios – We always did a 1-4 need to offer ratio. In the game, that can be a tad tough. I recommend a 1-3 ratio. Meaning if you have a need of 2 Offensive Tackles, I’m offering/recruiting 6. You can make judgement calls if you feel confident in landing them.
Below is an example of our recruiting boards we use for the game.



We have one need at QB, and we have 4 candidates that we like. We will put the top 2 on the official board on the game. The other two will stay off unless we need to get to them.

[coyb54]

Recruit Ratings:
As you can see above. There is colors associated with each recruit. While the star system is a good valuation of a player. The color code is the worthiness of the player to us.
The color valuation is not exactly the same as the star ratings. You may find a Gem that you really like, but is rated lower on ratings. You value that one much higher. It also helps with understanding where to focus your recruiting efforts.







A Blue to me typically gets an offer no matter what. I’m not saying no to them. Sometimes a position will have 3-4 blues.
Red falls into the same category typically, but I may not be pushing as heavy to get them.
Purple is basically filling a need. I can’t go into the season with 2 Offensive Tackles. I need to fill those spots.
Green is a guy that has something very appealing but overall they are not ready. The best example is a receiver with a high speed rating, but they need work. Sometimes I will take a green toward the end of a cycle if the needs are filled, and I can fit someone into the 85 to develop for a few seasons to see where they go.

Another thing is the star ratings. Take a minute, and look at the real world commits. It’s rare, very rare to see a 4 Star sign to a G5 school and it’s still rare to see a 4 star go to one of the lower Power 4 schools. Majority of programs are built off of 3 stars and lower. Finding gems, developing them, and hopefully turning them into great players. Want to give yourself a challenge? Stay away from the 4 Stars(if that’s the program level that you are at). Find Gems, build a board. Keep scouting even throughout the season because you may find a Gem late on, and they’ll shoot up your board incredibly fast.

Developing an Identity:
Through this process, you develop an identity of what you want your program to be. You can pick historical routes of your school, or you can develop your own pathways of what you want it to be. Especially with the local routes that you will develop and the direction you will take the program.


If you want to take it to the next level, focus your attention on the type of player that you can choose. While this is much more difficult for smaller schools. Bigger schools would have a luxury of doing this. Will you put a minimum on how big you want your players. Are there non-negotiables.
- - You won’t take a OL under 6’5.
- - You play in the stack, your want a war daddy at nose. Big thicc 6’4, 350 guys to eat double teams.
- - You like big corners? Not taking one under 6’1.
Those are just examples. The game does a good job of identifying top players are their own. So this can be a tad bit easier in real life, but it goes give a good challenge.


This is a work in progress as well. I will be editing throughout.

[DavisAC12]

Well, well, well. This is absolutely incredible. The madness for you to develop and write all this out is so cool, it’s nice to find other people who (for fun) help turn these games into a realistic experience for others.

I’ve done it for a good few years on FIFA doing similar type sets and guidelines for people in that community.

You’re right, this is a bit overwhelming to a recruiting noob like myself but it certainly provides great context into how it all works. It never felt good to be hunting 5 stars with a 1* prestige school.

I’d love to continue reading, even maybe help if I can at some point. This is wonderful stuff and you should be commended for it, great work!

PS - your user name being ‘coyb’ does that at all imply you’re an Everton fan?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ghost Of The Year]

My only rule is EA makes the rules, I'm going to exploit them any means neccesary .Recruiting is a dirty business, a dirty game. College footballs dirty little secret. I wont hesitate to tell whatever lie I have to sway that 4 star recruit that prefers ND or Michigan to come play ball at Ball State instead. If it seems unrealistic and unreasonable to steal such a player, need I remind you I have David Letterman at my disposal to use his vast and many connections to funnel whatever NIL monies you desire to Make Ball State Great.

[Seanzino]

The only thing I try to do as a very simple self-imposed rule is that I do not recruit players who don't have me in their top 10 AND are not in a pipeline state.

So if a player has me in their top 10 but is not in a pipeline? Fair game.

Those guys who go unrecruited with zero offers but do NOT have me in their top 10 and are NOT in a pipeline? I leave them alone.

Guys who are unrecruited, do NOT have me in their top 10 but are in a pipeline state? Fair game.

I feel like your OP's idea is very well laid out and described, but it's a bit too complex to remember when in the midst of the game.

[vinny_b]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seanzino

The only thing I try to do as a very simple self-imposed rule is that I do not recruit players who don't have me in their top 10 AND are not in a pipeline state. So if a player has me in their top 10 but is not in a pipeline? Fair game. Those guys who go unrecruited with zero offers but do NOT have me in their top 10 and are NOT in a pipeline? I leave them alone. Guys who are unrecruited, do NOT have me in their top 10 but are in a pipeline state? Fair game. I feel like your OP's idea is very well laid out and described, but it's a bit too complex to remember when in the midst of the game.

I'll probably employ all this. Thanks. Hopefully this will eliminate the whine-tasting fest, that is complaining of 5-star recruits going to low tier schools etc. Just imagine for a moment if we could resolve the issue ourselves..

[coyb54]

Quote: Originally Posted by DavisAC12

Well, well, well. This is absolutely incredible. The madness for you to develop and write all this out is so cool, it’s nice to find other people who (for fun) help turn these games into a realistic experience for others. I’ve done it for a good few years on FIFA doing similar type sets and guidelines for people in that community. You’re right, this is a bit overwhelming to a recruiting noob like myself but it certainly provides great context into how it all works. It never felt good to be hunting 5 stars with a 1* prestige school. I’d love to continue reading, even maybe help if I can at some point. This is wonderful stuff and you should be commended for it, great work! PS - your user name being ‘coyb’ does that at all imply you’re an Everton fan? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for kind words. I have ideas for other type posts as well.



and yes...I just don't openly talk about them that much these days! lol