Pipelines: A Total Redesign
( See the second post for the TL;DR version )
Introduction
As should probably be obvious from the title of this thread, this post will be proposing significant changes to Recruiting Pipelines. In short, I feel that recruiting pipelines do not properly reflect the benefit that a school gets for “dominating” recruitment in an area. Or that pipelines allow a school to “lock down” a state's borders. I believe what I propose today will allow that to change.
The Problem -- As I See It
Using the Roster to Establish a Pipeline
The first problem is that four players on a roster “establishes” a pipeline. This is to represent, I believe, a coach going into a high school player's office and being able to say “listen, we've got other kids from this area, and they've been successful.” But, in real life, the presence of four players from a state does not establish any sort of pipeline. At least not in the major football factory states. Four kids from Ohio on Michigan or Florida does not mean that either of those schools will be able to recruit Ohio like Ohio State.
The “State” of Miami
In real life, a pipeline is not to a state (at least not usually). It's usually to an individual school (like Ohio State and Cleveland-Glenville) or area. There have been suggestions that one way to improve this would be to break the states down into recruiting regions, such as Miami did with the “State of Miami” concept in the 80s.
(On a side note, if EA decided to break the states down into regions, I would love to see them use the media markets. It would be overly complicated and border on ridiculous, but it does make sense to me that the way to break down states is by what TV stations they would see coverage from.)
While I believe that could help the situation, I also think that may be taking a hammer to a problem that requires a chisel. Breaking the states into regions (without any other changes) would mean that, for example, Ohio State would need X number of players from Cleveland to get a pipeline, X number of players from Cincinnati, etc. And without the X number of players, they'd have no pipeline at all. Say they have only 3 players from the Cincinnati area … are you telling me that Ohio State has no “pipeline” type advantage to the Cincinnati area? Unlikely.
The concept of breaking down the states into regions would also put a premium focus on where recruits hometown's are. As far as I can tell, right now that is largely random. If the difference between Cleveland and Columbus is suddenly important, the placement of recruits would be something that would need focused on. I believe that time and effort could be better spent elsewhere.
One Size Fits All Pipelines
The final basic problem I see with pipelines, as they are, is that they are a constant, equal bonus applied to every team and every school. Even if we accept that pipelines are state-wide, and we accept that it only takes X players to establish a pipeline, I still fail to see how we can accept that a pipeline from Ohio to California (for USC) has the same level of influence as one from Ohio to Michigan (for Michigan), or even in-state Ohio (for Ohio State). In the game, every pipeline is a solid 25% bonus. But in the real-world, not every pipeline has the same level of pull.
The Alternative -- Name Recognition
In short, my suggestion is that pipelines, as they are today, are totally thrown out. No more dependencies on how many players from a state are on your roster. No more universal bonus regardless of the distance or state. No need to increase the complexity of pipelines or recruiting by breaking the states into regions or areas.
Instead, I would like to propose a system that could replicate what the real-life recruiting pipelines really are, in my opinion: name recognition of the school and name recognition of the coach. Though throughout the rest of this post I will continue to use "pipeline", just for ease of nomenclature.
I should, naturally, mention a disclaimer that I have never been recruited by a college, nor has anyone I know. So this is all just guessing based on what I've read and seen.
Using Results to Establish a Pipeline
The first, and primary, piece of this is establishing a system that bases pipelines on the results that a coach, and school, has with players from a state. If you recall, earlier I mentioned that a coach, in so far as my understanding, will use success with players from the area as leverage to recruit someone. This includes pipelines from specific high schools, where one successful player can lead to others from the same area. But the key is success. Under my design, it's not enough to recruit players from a certain state. You have to succeed with those players to earn a pipeline. Both on a team level (wins and losses, TV coverage) and an individual level (awards for players).
I'm just going to throw out some numbers here, so you get the idea of what I'm talking about. Following the 80/20 rule of trying to get 80% of the design on paper while not getting myself lost in the details.
For both coach and school recognition, every school has a scale of 0% to 100% for every state. I imagine it would look something like this, and replace the existing Pipeline screen in-game:
| State |
# of players |
Coach Rec. |
School Rec. |
| Alabama |
7 |
35% |
60% |
| Alaska |
0 |
0% |
0% |
| Arizona |
3 |
10% |
5% |
| ... |
... |
... |
... |
| Wisconsin |
15 |
50% |
83% |
| Wyoming |
1 |
2% |
6% |
So how do you get name recognition for your coach and school? I believe the easiest thing to do is make the criteria the same, but the value of the result different. I imagine school recognition is about half as volatile as coach recognition (simply because coaches will go dramatically up and down over time, while a school's reputation will be more steady). In the items below I'm going to suggest some numbers -- take those as the coach's recognition, not the school's.
So here are some examples of events that would make name recognition increase:
- Heisman trophy winner
- Award winner
- All-American
- All-Conference
- Bowl or CCG Victory (or, similarly, a conference championship)
- Rivalry Game Victory
- Top 25 Victory
- Any victory
- National TV Victory
- Signing a 5* recruit
- Get hired at a new (better?) school
And, of course, there need to be some negatives, otherwise everyone eventually gets to 100% everywhere.
- Upset loss
- National TV loss
- Conference loss
- Cutting a player (now people can't sign 25 every year without repercussions)
- Losing a Bowl or CCG
- Any loss
- If discipline was in, then having a player significantly suspended or kicked out of school
- Get fired (or, for the school, fire a coach or have a coach leave for a “better job”)
(Some of these ideas can stack, so a National TV loss that was an upset, in a bowl, will cost significantly more than any one of those three individually. The stacks would work both for positive events and negative events.)
So, for example, let's say I'm Auburn and it's 2010. Let's break down some of the events that went their way, and some of the (possible) point values those events could have associated with them:
- Defeated an unranked Miss St. team on the road. That gets a 1% bump in Alabama (team victory), and a 2% bump in Mississippi (for the location of the road game). Plus maybe additional bumps for a conference game?
- Defeat a ranked #12 South Carolina team at home. 2% bump for the team victory, and 1-2% extra for it being Top 25. As with above, possibly an additional bump for the conference game? That's in Alabama. Then a 1% bump in South Carolina (basically, the away team's state gets a 1% bump, the home team's state gets a 2% bump)
- Defeat a ranked #6 LSU team at home, on CBS at 3:30. 2% bump in Alabama, 1% bump in Louisiana. 1-2% extra in each because of the Top 25. 1-2% extra in each because of it being national coverage.
- You get the idea. The victory over Alabama would get an extra bump for being a rivalry game, and the victory over the Cocks in the CCG would be extra for that reason too.
- The National Championship would be a … let's say 10% bump in every state across the nation (again, we're throwing out numbers here). Plus a 25-30% bump in Alabama itself. And some extra bump in Oregon (opponent) and Arizona (site of the game).
And now we get to the awards:
- Winning the Heisman is a big deal. In terms of bringing in a recruit, maybe it's half as important as winning a national championship (which is still pretty important). So, 5% national boost. But to Georgia (Cam Newton's home state), that's huge. Lots of press, to be sure. Maybe equal to a national title? 30%? More? 50%? I could even be influenced enough to think that it's an instant boost to 100%.
- Newton won several other awards, of course, but let's be honest … only the hardest of the hardcore football fans pay attention to the Home Depot Awards Show. So while there's certainly bumps for those awards, they are nowhere near the Heisman. And, like the Heisman, they go to the player's state, not the school's. That's where the whole idea of using results to establish a pipeline comes in.
The list of negatives follows the same general principle, except that each negative is magnified versus the positive. Much like human nature is to remember bad events rather than good ones. Or, at least a fan base's nature. So for every 1% you get in credit for a victory, you lose 3% for a loss. An upset victory gets 2%? Upset loss loses 6%. A win on the road gains 3%? Losing at home loses 9% (and that doesn't seem like enough). Etc, etc. So, on pure wins and losses, you have to go 9-3 (Earle Bruce!) just to keep everything even in a state. Of course, with some victories being on the road and losses being at home, y'know, things will never just “stay even”. Which is the idea here.
Now, one thing before I forget … this system would have some way of balancing out for lesser teams, though I'm not quite sure how. But I know Kent State doesn't deserve to lose as much influence because of a home loss as Ohio State does. So there has to be some weight to the system by prestige or ranking, I'm just not immediately sure how to do it.
Regions of Influence
One of my other big gripes about the way pipelines are done currently is that there's no influence over the surrounding states. The system implies, if we assume no schools have a pipeline, that Ohio State, Virginia, and USC have an equal “pipeline” (meaning: none) to the state of Indiana. From proximity alone, we know this isn't true. Because of proximity to the state, and TV coverage, Ohio State is going to have a sphere of influence over Indiana recruits that the other two don't. Remember, this isn't about a “pipeline” per se, but rather a reflection of the fact that an Indiana kid is being recruited by Ohio State. Which, because of the proximity, is going to mean a little bit more than it would if Ohio State was halfway across the country.
Now, the game tries to replicate this by giving closer schools a Proximity at Home advantage, which only helps for those players that care about that pitch. For everyone else, it's basically a toss-up between close schools and far-away ones. Which, while it may be true for some, it's unlikely that a closer school won't have that little bit of tug for just about everyone. Maybe it's an aunt, cousin, or friends at school that have gear from State U, but that kid will probably know someone that will push him toward that school -- not because he'll stay at home, but because it's the big school that's close by.
To that end, I propose that we split the country into regions. Immediately, the conference footprints would be the first level of regions. But not every association between two states is because of a conference. There's also geography and TV markets to consider. So, in addition to conference footprints, you could also have geographic regions (e.g. the New England states grouped together, or the Deep South) or other obvious connections. In particular, I think it would be beneficial if the “major” football states (e.g. Texas, California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, etc) were all in more than one region, so there was some overlap.
Why? Because part of your successes (and failures) in a state also influences the region. We don't operate in a vacuum, after all. If Penn State signs a 5* recruit out of New Jersey, it's not just New Jersey that will be influenced by that -- it's the entire Northeast (hey, Penn State might be a good school for Johnny in New York!) AND the entire Big Ten (Penn State's making some big waves in recruiting!).
I should emphasize, I'm not proposing getting rid of pipelines (or “recognition”, in my nomenclature) at the state level. I just think success should also be a regional concept, in addition to a state concept.
Different Sizes of Pipes
So the final piece of the puzzle: how does this all work? The current system says that a school either has a pipeline or it doesn't. If it does, the pipeline is worth a 25% bonus for every piece of every call. I said above that each school has a 0-100% rating for every state, for both the school and the coach. I would propose upping the total bonus to 30%, but split it evenly between the school and the coach. 15% bonus from the coach, 15% bonus from the school. So if you have 60% name recognition from the coach, but only 10% for the school, you get a (.6*.15)+(.1*.15)=10.5% bonus. If you have 50% name recognition for the school, but 100% for the school, the bonus would be 22.5%.
Isn't this a little complicated?
While, at first, this system may seem overly complicated, I think in practice it won't be. With the new dynamic recruiting ratings, we have systems like Championship Contender, where your school can move up and down throughout the season, and you don't know quite what influences it. You know, vaguely, that having better players will get you a better ranking, but that's it. I think the same could be said for this proposal. Anyone who wants to take the time could figure out what the best ways are to improve your pipeline (and, of course, I would assume those positives and negatives would be documented somewhere), but, overall, the idea is pretty simple. Want to improve your pipeline to certain state? Recruit those players. And win. Most of the complexity, in my mind, is in the back-end programming, not what the users have to worry about.
Anything else?
First, you may wonder why I decided to split the name recognition into both the school and the coach. Well, for one, a school's name is established over time, and is less susceptible to drastic changes, so it will increase and decrease less dramatically. For two, coaches move on. Coaches are fired, and new coaches are hired. A new coach will bring his own name recognition to the new program, and the school's name recognition isn't going anywhere. There may be some changes due to how the previous coach left, where the new coach came from, etc. But, to put it simply, Ohio State is still Ohio State and Urban Meyer is still Urban Meyer.
Second, I should discuss atrophy. I should first say that I have absolutely no idea how this could possibly work. Is it per week, per year, or what? Not sure. Maybe it's just a reset at the beginning of a pre-season. But, obviously, name recognition decreases over time, and not just because of bad results. It also decreases because of a lack of results. Notre Dame is still a top-tier program, but the Golden Dome is not quite what it was in Lou Holtz's heyday (or earlier), and it's not just because Notre Dame has had losses, it's also because they haven't been competing for national championships (until this year) and that's partly why the Notre Dame, as a brand, does not ring quite as true for today's recruits as it did in the past. So, every year, some of the name recognition is going to decrease. I'm thinking, off the top of my head, around 20% a year. Now, unlike the “bumps” and “losses” I discussed earlier, this isn't a straight subtraction from your total. Instead, it's 20% of your total. So a name recognition of 10% loses 2%, while 100% loses 20%. The weighted loss is an attempt to acknowledge that some programs have more to lose than others, while still having coaches and schools lose their influence over time.
Finally, one concern I do have is that the system of giving bonuses for wins and losses might be magnifying advantages that schools already have. A team like Alabama, with three national championships in four years, is already going to be loaded with tremendous recruiting pitches, and probably have every advantage under the sun. And this system would probably give them some additional advantages. However, I think this system also evens the playing field. Alabama will get some national bonuses (which, I think is fair, because almost any kid who gets called up by an Alabama coach is going to feel pulled to go there, at least some, right?), but the local school is still going to have an advantage, over time.
Look at it this way … if you have two Powerhouse-level schools, say Florida and Ohio State, going after the same kid, and the kid is from Florida. Both schools have “pipelines” to Florida, according to the game. Florida and Ohio State are going to have very, very similar recruiting pitches, in the game. Florida's only real advantage is Proximity to Home. But if the recruit has a Low in Proximity to Home, Florida now has, effectively, no advantage over Ohio State, even though the recruit is from Florida! I think my idea overcomes that, because Florida is much, much more likely to have a “full” pipeline to Florida, while Ohio State is not.
I also think re-doing pipelines (whether my idea or someone else's) is the only way that DGB ever goes to Missouri.
Well, I think that's it. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I appreciate any questions, comments, or criticisms you have.
