humanrefutation wrote:ReasonablySober wrote:Is recruiting completely screwed up for anyone else here?
I'm into my 4th dynasty, second time around with Wisconsin. I'm undefeated going into week eight. #2 school in country after wins over Georgia, USC, Ole Miss, and Texas. I've been the #1 choice for at least 15 of my targets but I've been top 3 with probably 30 of them.
But other scools have 10 four stars and 2 five stars. Or 6 four stars and four 5 stars. Most have signed at least 9 players
I've signed no one. My class is ranked 134 out of 134.
This is something I'm struggling with, too, and perhaps I'm doing something wrong?
I start by picking 35 targets. I scout them all. I offer all of them early on (unless scouting grants them the dreaded x-gem, after which I replace them with another target). I spend hours on pretty much all of them (maxing out against the top 15-20 guys on my list at the very least.) Many of them have Wisconsin in their top 3 if not at 1. And yet, I'm at Week 10 and I only have one commit (a 4*) despite being undefeated. I keep losing guys and then picking new targets.
What am I doing wrong? To those of you who pull in great classes, how are you picking your targets, or spending hours, or scheduling visits, etc? Any tips? Are you offering scholarships to all 35 or holding back some for the portal?
I scout probably like 25-30 guys off the rip (or however many I can while still offering scholarships to the guys I'm really chasing, which is usually ~15-20 at the start). Then once you get past Week 0 and can actually start recruiting, I do the max 50 points (or potentially more if I can, but usually only 50) for the guys I offered scholarships to. Usually the last few guys that I offered only get 25 points. Then I just check back each week to see if they've hit Top 5 yet so that I can start scheduling visits and switching from "Send the House" to "Hard Sell" or potentially "Soft Sell" and "Sway". After the first couple weeks, you can kinda tell if you're going to get the recruit or not; I usually have a few where I'm the only school recruiting them hard, so I switch to a "Soft Sell" for them to save points so I can schedule more visits, recruit more players, etc. If it's clear early on that other schools are pulling away from me, I'll usually bail, and start recruiting other guys.
I sometimes get a commitment in Week 0 when I offer the initial scholarship, but otherwise it probably takes until Week 5 or so before guys start committing. Last season, I ended up with 25 commitments by the end of the regular season and had the #4 class in the country.
One other note with the Hard/Soft Sells, even if you don't have all 3 of the green pitches revealed, as long as you have 2 or even sometimes just 1, you can usually use process of elimination to determine what the ideal sell is so you don't necessarily have to wait until you have all 3 green pitches.
