NCAA Football 12 Dynasty Mode Recruiting Compendium

[psusnoop]

I've gone back and forth on this one but have recently had the most success when I narrow my board a little bit. I just started going back to only putting 12 players on my board. As someone commits I look around at someone else to target.

For me I've found that I'm able to really increase my gap between the opposing schools by giving each guy close to 60 minutes a week which in turns allows me to widen my board so that by week 6 I'm recruiting 15-20 players now. So as I get to the #1 spot and spent 60 on this guy for 2 or 3 weeks and notice that I'm sitting with a 700 point lead over second place for him I'll knock back his time slightly and add a prospect to take up what time I took from him. Over time as I get commits I do the same thing kind of like a rinse and repeat function get 1 add 1.

The other benefit is that I'll have a higher chance to get an instant commit or a x2 on a recruit when I only have 12 to go from.

[morsdraconis]

I've gone back and forth on this one but have recently had the most success when I narrow my board a little bit. I just started going back to only putting 12 players on my board. As someone commits I look around at someone else to target.

For me I've found that I'm able to really increase my gap between the opposing schools by giving each guy close to 60 minutes a week which in turns allows me to widen my board so that by week 6 I'm recruiting 15-20 players now. So as I get to the #1 spot and spent 60 on this guy for 2 or 3 weeks and notice that I'm sitting with a 700 point lead over second place for him I'll knock back his time slightly and add a prospect to take up what time I took from him. Over time as I get commits I do the same thing kind of like a rinse and repeat function get 1 add 1.

The other benefit is that I'll have a higher chance to get an instant commit or a x2 on a recruit when I only have 12 to go from.

See, what's weird is, logically, since I know how this recruiting system works, having a big board should always be better because of the small amount of interest garnered by just having a recruit on your board to begin with. Sure, you lose out on the x2 bonuses, but, really, they aren't worth it in my eyes. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten it on someone that I was already killing my opposition on anyway.

In the end, I think it makes more sense to just go with a board of 20-25 players setup like this:

• 60 Minutes Group - 5 players that are must have players. These are the players that you REALLY want to get, but you're at the bottom of the top 10 on or you aren't even on their list to begin with. You give these guys 60 minutes every week unless there is no competition for them and you're leading by a large margin, in which case you replace them with other pipedream players (and push them down to either the 40 minute group or the 20 minute group) that are still at the top 10 schools stage (haven't narrowed it down any yet) and no school as shown any interest in them. You don't have to personally be in their top 10, they just need to have not narrowed it down any yet. These guys could also be replaced by pink diamond players with the hope that you can make up any ground that you may have lost to not knowing that they had any interest in you at the beginning of the season.
• 40 Minutes Group - 5 players that fill your needs the most. You give these guys 40 minutes every week, no matter what as these guys are the ones that are going to be the , , or guys that fill the needs and, therefore, depth of your team. These are the guys that are the foundation of your squad as they are the ones that will be redshirted and probably not start until their 3rd year on the team (RS Sophomore or Junior year). As with the 60 min group, if you start blowing out the competition, then these guys get pushed down to the 20 minutes group and you add someone else to either this group or do more rearranging by bringing someone down from the 60 minutes group to the 40 minutes group and add another to the 60 minute group.
• 20 Minutes Group - 5 players that either continue to fill your needs (if you require more than 5 players to fill the needs of your team) but are lower caliber than the 40 min group and therefore don't need as much attention or are guys that extend or keep held a pipeline for your recruiting purposes. These guys get just 20 minutes a week, but that's normally plenty enough for what they offer. If you start losing ground on someone in this group, don't be afraid to cut your losses and bring someone up from the extra 5-10 players on your board to replace them (and, of course, replace the extra spot on your board with someone else). It's likely that someone in your 16-25 range was a player on your top 15 to begin with so you aren't starting from complete scratch with them.
• 16-25 Group - These players are the ones that you are trying to keep interested enough in your program without them committing to somewhere else. When you have someone on your board, but you don't spend any points on them, you still get a small amount of points toward recruiting them because you have them on your board, showing, at least, a small amount of interest in them. These spots are for guys that you are trying to increase your pipeline range with (or keep it increased with depth players). These are the players (or maybe even or if you're a 6 prestige school) that either have interest in you or aren't being recruited (as most players aren't) but you want them for nothing but to either keep a pipeline you already have or to establish a new one to increase your range of influence. This group will get no time spent on them except for the automatic gain for having them on your board. They will be, most likely, the ones that you will pull up to your 20 min group if you lose someone in that group as, even if you aren't able to get a new pipeline in one year, you can always make a play to make it easier to get two the next year.

Then, with that setup, I only give scholarships to players that have me as a #1 (which I also spend 60 minutes on, no matter where they are located on my board - besides the 16-25, of course) on their list. Only time I give a scholarship to someone that isn't #1 already is when I schedule a visit as I'm trying to make the big push to get them to either instant commit on that visit or, at the very least, make me #1 on their list now.

I always make use of the promises. As many as I think I can fulfill with them. For example, if I'm a small school (1, 2, or 3 prestige school), I'm going to go all out with the promises to make them feel special (winning record against rivals, significant playing time, freshman all-american, etc) in the hopes that they'll lean toward me more than another school that isn't make those promises.

I, personally, don't recruit on Heisman, but I've heard that this method works extremely well on even cheating ass Heisman recruiting difficulty.

[JeffHCross]

How should I adapt this guide to fit a prestige school, instead of a cupcake school like it was intended for?

Ok so this guide worked beautifully for me as a school but now that I'm a 6 prestige school and I'm going after lots of 4 and 5 recruits, I'm having trouble signing any.

Personally, there is little difference for me in recruiting at a school versus a school. I approach my board the same way, just the level of player I'm going after is different.

The only real "problem" I see in your approach is the 20-40 minutes. The only time my maximum was 40 minutes was when my board was pretty full. By Week 3, if I'm remembering correctly, I was usually giving my top guys 60 minutes.

Using my spreadsheet from NCAA 11 ... my maximum points in any normal week (meaning without x2s) was at least in the 400 range after week 1, and often in the high 400s or 500s.

The other thing to keep in mind is your "My School" pitches. Just because you're a 6-star school doesn't mean that some of your items (like "Program Stability", "Fanbase", "Pro Factory") are up to competitive levels against other 5-star or 6-programs. So it's possible that you may, simply, not be able to compete for the same level of recruits.

Also, you mentioned only looking at the B+ ratings. A Most, even with a C, can give you a decent point potential. It's just a game of math, unfortunately, and what a pitch really is isn't as important as what the point values you'll get for it. Maybe it would be good practice to load up another dynasty (where you don't care about messing up) and seeing what kind of point values you can get out of combinations like "Most -> B" or "Most -> C" or "Very High - C".

Finally, don't be afraid to dump guys. If you're 400+ points behind the leading school early in the season, and the schools you are behind are actively recruiting the kid, you're not likely to catch up, especially not without some help like x2s or the competition losing their scheduled visit. Now, if you come across a guy in Week 6 who you're -400 behind and it doesn't look like any CPU teams are recruiting him, that's a different story.

EDIT: Mors' post above about 60 minute group, etc, is very solid. It's close enough to my own strategy, which I know works.

[Bohica1010]

Can someone tell me why there would be a difference in points for recruiting? I didn't notice this until just recently when I tried to recruit online as opposed to on the PS3 (wife wanted to finish her movie on the TV) that there was a difference in points. What I mean is, I have a soft commit from 2 different players where both of their bars appear to be filled, however one has 2996 points and the other has 3495 points. Both are 2 star recruits as well. Does everyone had the same point total to be recruited?

[morsdraconis]

Can someone tell me why there would be a difference in points for recruiting? I didn't notice this until just recently when I tried to recruit online as opposed to on the PS3 (wife wanted to finish her movie on the TV) that there was a difference in points. What I mean is, I have a soft commit from 2 different players where both of their bars appear to be filled, however one has 2996 points and the other has 3495 points. Both are 2 star recruits as well. Does everyone had the same point total to be recruited?

As far as I know, there isn't a set number of points you need to get to get a recruit to sign with you. It's all based on how much they like you vs how much they like everyone else vs what difficulty of recruiting you're on. The total amount of points, in the end, that it takes to recruit someone is meaningless.

[Bohica1010]

As far as I know, there isn't a set number of points you need to get to get a recruit to sign with you. It's all based on how much they like you vs how much they like everyone else vs what difficulty of recruiting you're on. The total amount of points, in the end, that it takes to recruit someone is meaningless.

So that would make sense on why even though the line is basically full, even if you throw an hour and 500 points at it, they still don't commit to you. That does bring me to another question of, if the bar is full, what are the thoughts on how much time to spend on someone like that? For example, you are 400 points ahead of the next team and they have soft committed to you and for 3 weeks you have thrown 40-50 minutes with no commit. How do you push them to commit?

[morsdraconis]

So that would make sense on why even though the line is basically full, even if you throw an hour and 500 points at it, they still don't commit to you. That does bring me to another question of, if the bar is full, what are the thoughts on how much time to spend on someone like that? For example, you are 400 points ahead of the next team and they have soft committed to you and for 3 weeks you have thrown 40-50 minutes with no commit. How do you push them to commit?

You don't. You spend 20-30 minutes on them instead and ride it out. There's no surefire way to get them to commit to you. If you are ahead of a team by even 300 points, it's time to call off the dogs on that recruit unless there's a sudden jump in interest by the CPU for him.

[illwill10]

You don't. You spend 20-30 minutes on them instead and ride it out. There's no surefire way to get them to commit to you. If you are ahead of a team by even 300 points, it's time to call off the dogs on that recruit unless there's a sudden jump in interest by the CPU for him.

Exactly what I do. Either when I am over 300 or the Bar is Green and at least 200 away, I stop calling them as much. I dont care about committing them, I dont want another team to come back. So, I focus on other players until I time comes under 400, then I worry.

[illwill10]

My recruiting traditions are unless I am going after top players or players I REALLY want, I dont go after a guy if I am over 400 away from him. With the top/elite guys, I dont guy after them unless the #10 team on their list is under 400(maybe higher if I must have them). Because if the #10 team is way off, I know we are WAY OFF. I would have to have a 2X week for him and hope my good topics pop up, and hope that I can compare against them. Even though I recruits 1 star players from Florida so I can get Florida as a pipeline in 1st year as with a SEC team, I didnt use Florida at all and I cut the players I signed from there. Since this year I have only 1 need, I am going after best talent. I think I will have to sign someone from there or I lose Florida.

[Bohica1010]

Another Question...

What is the thought on calling a player on the same week they are visiting? Does that do anything? Do you get the phone call points and the visit points?

[JeffHCross]

As far as I know, there isn't a set number of points you need to get to get a recruit to sign with you.

My understanding is that there is a set number of points, but it's different for every player. Probably set on creation. That's why you can have a huge lead and the player still won't sign, yet other times a player will sign with a 50 point lead or whatever.

What is the thought on calling a player on the same week they are visiting? Does that do anything? Do you get the phone call points and the visit points?

There's really no absolute rule, a bunch of people follow different strategies with visit weeks. I usually don't differentiate between a visit week or regular week, and call him the same as I normally would, unless I'm really short on time and then I'll pull back 10 minutes here or there.

[Bohica1010]

My understanding is that there is a set number of points, but it's different for every player. Probably set on creation. That's why you can have a huge lead and the player still won't sign, yet other times a player will sign with a 50 point lead or whatever.

There's really no absolute rule, a bunch of people follow different strategies with visit weeks. I usually don't differentiate between a visit week or regular week, and call him the same as I normally would, unless I'm really short on time and then I'll pull back 10 minutes here or there.

Thanks! You have been most helpful!

[morsdraconis]

Same here Jeff. I normally call them anyway (especially since there is a really bad bug that I use to my advantage where if they are visiting that week and you actually get persued them to increase their interest in one of your categories, it'll bump up EVERYTHING by 2-3 spots basically netting you SEVERAL very high or most ratings to exploit).

[illwill10]

Same here Jeff. I normally call them anyway (especially since there is a really bad bug that I use to my advantage where if they are visiting that week and you actually get persued them to increase their interest in one of your categories, it'll bump up EVERYTHING by 2-3 spots basically netting you SEVERAL very high or most ratings to exploit).

I didnt know anything about that. I will definitely use that.

[baseballplyrmvp]

mors! now look what you did. lol

[illwill10]

mors! now look what you did. lol

It is not like I am in a OD.

[baseballplyrmvp]

well, then its ok.

[illwill10]

well, then its ok.

I dont play online and I dont play against someone else.

[JeffHCross]

it'll bump up EVERYTHING by 2-3 spots basically netting you SEVERAL very high or most ratings to exploit).

Yeah ... I ... hate ... that ... bug. I mean, sure, it's worked to my advantage a couple times, but it can make visits utterly ridiculous.

[morsdraconis]

Yeah ... I ... hate ... that ... bug. I mean, sure, it's worked to my advantage a couple times, but it can make visits utterly ridiculous.

It's definitely a REALLY bad bug for ODs (but, I'm pretty sure, it doesn't actually work in ODs, though I could be wrong).

I really only use it to be a dick to the CPU's cheating ass. Truthfully, as much as I hate the current recruiting system, I really just did it to make up for me not being incredibly meticulous during other aspects of the recruiting phase.