Help for an NCAA rookie

[woody2goody]

As some of you know, I'm from the UK, and I've been a fan of American Football for 7 years or so.

I ordered my first NCAA game a couple of days ago from Canada, and it should arrive either tomorrow or Tuesday. Despite having a decent knowledge of Pro Football, and having watched some college games, I have very little clue of how I should go about running a successful dynasty.

Recruiting in particular is an area of which I know extremely little, and I was wondering if I could get a few helpful hints and tips from the rest of the OS community on a few things, such as:

1. Which team should I go for? Is it better to start with a high-ranked team or a low one? I was thinking of maybe Colorado or Oklahoma but suggestions would be nice (I play on All-American and win roughly 50% of games on the demo. I usually play Madden on All-Pro but have found it too easy, however NCAA 12 is definitely harder)

2. How best to start my dynasty? Anything I need to know before I start my first season?

3. Recruiting - Simple strategies which I can use and not get too confused with. (Bear in mind I have very little knowledge of the college system, and my geographical knowledge is only reasonable.)

4. Gameplanning - Should I stick with the default playbooks? (Which is the way I am inclined to go as they will be well suited to the individual teams)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This community has been very helpful to me concerning college football over the past year or so, and now that the game's arrival is imminent I need all the help I can get!

Woody

[KleShreen]

In your case I would say it would be better to start with a highly ranked team. It will make recruiting easier and your games will be easier. After you get the hang of it, you can move to a lower-ranked team and try and "move them up the ranks" so to speak.

For recruiting, it's best to use the team needs page to see what you need. If you're on 360, I believe it's the Y-button in most of the recruiting menu pages will which show a screen that shows the breakdown of your roster. It will show how many freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors you'll have at each position for the NEXT season. The positions highlighted in red will be the positions that you will want to recruit more guys at to fill needs. If you don't get commitments from enough players at those positions, they'll be filled with walk-on guys who will be in their 40's for overall ratings most times. For me, say I need 2 MLB's, I'll probably put 5 or 6 on my "target" list, which is just a list of players that I'm interested in. You can have 35 of them at any moment.

You get 25 commitments each year. Usually what I will do is gauge the player's interest in my highest graded "pitches" first and if any of them are well received, I'll push those pitches as much as possible.

Recruiting in itself is really tough to explain because everything is fluid. You have to figure out what each recruit likes individually and if their top interest isn't a highly-graded pitch for you, it will be tough.

Some other people will be able to give you input on recruiting better. I usually explain things way too thoroughly and this post would be huge. Someone will be able to better summarize things for you.

[willIam9387]

1. As far as team, it's really up to you and what style of offense or defense you prefer running. Also do you want to have a scrambling qb vs. a pocket passer, speed hb vs. a power back, etc. If I were you I'd just look through the depth chart and settle on a team that has the kind of players you want to play with. Both Colorado and Oklahoma are good choices. Both have different offenses and also there is a huge talent gap between them.

As far as difficulty, play on whatever difficulty gives you a challenge and mostly important the difficulty where you have the most fun playing. In my experience, I play on the difficulty that's most challenging to me and fun at the same time, and where I only have to make minimal slider tweaks. I've never been a fan of making a ton of slider tweaks because then I feel you are just on the pursuit of perfection in terms of gameplay, and in reality you will never achieve that because NCAA 11 was inherently imperfect, and so will NCAA 12 will be as every game is.

2. With regards to dynasty, I normally start my dynasty after the rosters come out, which is will be about a week after release. I like playing with the names, feels more authentic to me. Also I play on All-American or Heisman difficulty in respect to recruiting.

3. With recruiting it's important to first determine your needs and also recruit to your philosophy. If you need a qb, then ask what type of qb I need, is it a pocket passer or scrambling? Also I normally only add around 15 to 18 players to my recruiting board at the start so I can focus more on recruiting quality over quantity, and there's a higher chance i encounter the X2 recruiting bonus or instant commit bonus.

4. And I agree you should start out using the default playbooks to get a feel for the different types of plays, then once you feel comfortable with a bunch of varying formations, I'd think about creating a playbook.

Hope that helps! And have fun!

[SammyC14]

Good question and a good reply.

May be redundant but you will be able to know what positions you need and when looking at the recruits for those positions, you'll be able to tell which recruits you may have a shot at signing or not. In years past they even have a way to sort out the recruits that are already interested in your school.

By playing a season you will be able to tell which aspect of the game your team is weak at and you can do a number of different things but I would either recruit better players at that position (or allow the current players to progress) and/or choose a playbook that may benefit the players you already have. Example being if you are deep with linebackers choose a 3-4 instead of a 4-3 also if you are deep at WR choose a spread style of offense instead of a pro style or west coast.

Hope that also helps!

[woody2goody]

Thanks for the replies so far

Would you say that it's better to get the best recruits you can and build a system around them, or recruit guys that will work well in your existing system?

Anybody got any more team suggestions?

[bad_philanthropy]

If you do end up using a team like Oklahoma or Colorado, in addition to locking down the best recruits in your own state, for Oklahoma you want to make sure you build a strong recruiting ground in Texas and in California for Colorado.

The traditional talent hotbeds for recruits in college football are Texas, California, Florida, and Ohio — with Alabama and some of the other Southeastern states producing quite a lot talent as well.

If you pick a team without a rich in-state talent pool, try to build a recruiting pipeline in one of the nearer more talent-wealthy states.

[woody2goody]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

If you do end up using a team like Oklahoma or Colorado, in addition to locking down the best recruits in your own state, for Oklahoma you want to make sure you build a strong recruiting ground in Texas and in California for Colorado. The traditional talent hotbeds for recruits in college football are Texas, California, Florida, and Ohio — with Alabama and some of the other Southeastern states producing quite a lot talent as well. If you pick a team without a rich in-state talent pool, try to build a recruiting pipeline in one of the nearer more talent-wealthy states.

Thanks for explaining that mate, I think I'll go for Colorado considering they have a beautiful stadium and surrounding area, and I already support the Avs and the Rockies.

Will it be explained in the game how to build recruiting pipelines, and if not can somebody explain how to do it?

[georgiafan]

Quote: Originally Posted by woody2goody

Thanks for explaining that mate, I think I'll go for Colorado considering they have a beautiful stadium and surrounding area, and I already support the Avs and the Rockies. Will it be explained in the game how to build recruiting pipelines, and if not can somebody explain how to do it?

Once you have a certain amount of players from that state on your roster they become pipline states. So when you pitch something to a player you will get a point bonus for it being a pipine. You will get a even bigger bonus for the prospects from your state.