Revision as of 11:50, 18 December 2006

Maxes

The best players will receive the maximum number of recruiting points (17) each week from multiple coaches. If you want a chance of signing the best players you will have to do the same, so plan accordingly how many players you will max. LTT teams can theoretically max 4 players, but that leaves no points for a safety net.

Tips

• Maxing the 2 or 3 best recruits available is likely to leave you in high ties with only a 20% chance (or worse) of landing each player. You may want to consider maxing 1 or 2 of the best players and 1 or 2 guys who are likely to be low ties (or even leads)

Safety Net

While Ideally you should be aiming for at least three clear leads so that you can avoid walk-ons.

Tips

• Use the early recruiting bonus

When you spend one or more points, or give a scholarsip on/to a player in the first week of recruiting you will receive a bonus of 15RPE on that player. In the second week you will receive 13 additional RPE and you receive 2 less bonus RPE each week.

• Make a large safety net

Maximise your use of the early recruiting bonus by making a large safety net in the first week. Especially when you are first starting, consider using only 2 maxes and spending 33x1 RPE on safety net players until you get a feel for which players get maxed in your league and which ones don't get recruited at all. This will give you 33 players at 16RPE after the first week.

• Experiment

Use your safety net to discover which sorts of players (by scout, attributes, height, preference, position etc) get maxed in your league and which ones don't. If you can find a pattern for effective players that don't get maxed you're on your way to building a good safety net each season.

• First Drop

If its late in the season and you can't establish any more leads consider getting to first drop (1/x) on recruits. The team in the lead might sign 3 different players and then you will be in a position to sign that player.

General Tips

• Players need 28RPE to be guaranteed to sign with you, they might sign for less, but get to 28 to make sure.
• If you are more than 3RPE behind on a recruit you are unlikely to have the first chance of signing the player, consider spending your points elsewhere
• Even if you have a clear lead on a player you need to spend 5RPE on that player each week to guarantee a 1RPE lead on that player.
• Don't forget to give scholarships to players you want to sign!

Preferences

I. Win Preference

1) The Instructions

"Winning programs" will be measured based on 55% Last year's results, 35% the prior year to that, and 10% the next prior year. The exception is that if there is 3-year trend of improvement, the 10% "next prior" will be ignored and "last year" will get 65%.

A year's performance is measured as your highest Power Ranking after games 19-24. This instruction aids the user in determining his or her Win ranking.

2) 3 Yrs of Improvement

Positive successive movement towards a better PR is not enough to ensure you are a winning program, for the purposes of recruiting. Use common sense when determining if you are winning or not. If you are seeded well in the PTT, a recruit will probably view your school as a winning program, at least to some degree. This is not in anyway an official definition, but a rule of thumb.

3) Relativity of the Rule

We must realize that this type of ratings can be relative. There is an old joke where 2 men are walking in the woods. Along comes a hungry bear, and one hiker takes out running shoes and starts lacing them up. The other hiker looks at him and says " What are you doing? You can't out run a bear." The running shoe hiker responds " I don't need to, I just need to out run you." You may not be the fastest (winningest/highest PR) school in the nation, but in most instances, it helps you to be faster than your competition on a recruit. This isn't a guarantee, however. Sometimes a recruit goes where he wants, despite what may be 'best' for him.

II. Local Preference

1) Defining Terms

Recruit's Region - Each recruit's profile lists his preferences regarding playing close to home, indicated with a "None/Poor/Fair/Good/Exc" rating (to be consistent with player attribute ratings).

An "exc" here indicates a strong desire to stay close to home. A "fair" means "neutral" desire. A "none" actually represents a strong desire to move away from home.

2) Practically Speaking

There is an important adjustment necessary here. "Close to Home" is measured as follows:

a) All teams in the same number conference as the recruit's region (e.g., Conf 1 & Region 1), are considered equally close (even compared to the hometown).

b) Teams from conferences numbered +1 or -1 from the recruit's region are considered equally close to the recruit, but are not as close as the previously mentioned class.

c) Teams from conferences numbered +2 or -2 from the recruit's region are considered equally close to the recruit, but are not as close as the previously mentioned class.

d) Trading reality for playability, we make the assumption that conferences 1 & 32 are "next to each other".

3) Examples

a) If you are a conference 2 team, your best "close to home" advantage is with Region 2 recruits. You have some advantage with Region 1 and 3 recruits also. You have less, but still some, advantage with Region 32 and 4 recruits

b) My understanding is that once recuits are out of you 5 conference "Close-to-home"(CTH) area, then they are considered equidistant to all others out of its CTH region. For example, your conference is 17. Your local conferences/regions would be 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Any other conference/region is the South Pole as far as you're concerned.

Strategies