1st Year Recruiting

[Lahti]

I really don't consider myself an expert at all at this game, but the one thing I've had considerable success with early recruiting in career mode. Lots of people say you should go for 2 and 3 stars in your first year. That's all good if you want to get rid of some scholarships but if you want some quality players for your second year here's what to do. The first thing to do is use the skills your alloted the first season to raise recruiting to a B+. Honestly I can't remember if you choose your assistants the first year but if you can, select one with more recruiting skill and one with good scouting.

Now that you got that set up it's time to look at your recruiting possibilities. You should only look at 3 distances which are Municipal, Local and World. I suggest if there is a 5 star available in the world category to call and email them every week, because no one goes after them. It will be until after the season until they finally show a large interest, but the results are worth the wait. Other than that you can go after 5 stars in local or municipal distance categories, but again that will only end in heartbreak. So go after those 4 star gems in all 3 of those categories and season 2 you'll start to see major improvement in your lineup.

P.S. It also helps to invest those points you gain from the season in recruiting.

[LouisvilleDerk]

Don't waste what few recruiting points you have emailing and calling world recruits every week. They'll go to your school anyway, just offer them a scholarship in the postseason.

I'll describe what I did... take it or leave it, but it worked out for me.

I'm currently on my 10th season now. I spent the first 5 with Charleston Southern (I don't know what they were when I got them, but after 5 years their overall rating was 93), the next 4 with Temple (brought them up from 85 to 100), and now I'm at South Carolina.

I didn't put a single point in recruiting until my 9th year.

My rationale for doing this was as follows: you have a lot of control over your head coach in terms of where you can distribute your points. You should either put them towards skills or recruiting. If you put them towards recruiting, eventually (and very soon, as you pick up a lot of coaching points those first few years) you'll branch out to the skills, and then you have a problem in terms of whether you want to keep sending your coach out to visit players because you're losing training time with your players.

If you have your coach always stay in house, one assistant to bolster the training, and one assistant for recruiting, you can do a lot better than if you put all your points in recruiting and try to find two good assistant coaches for training.

Anyway, this has worked pretty well for me. I got the coaching point for having a top 20 recruiting class the year after I went to Temple, and this next year I'm going to have the top recruiting class (Six 5-star players). The assistant coach I have now that does my recruiting only has B+ recruiting, B scouting.

[Lahti]

Well, I've never really tried it but even with the consistent recruiting of world recruits I have been unable to sign them so relying on the last minute scholarship offer may not prove sufficient. I do agree that your head coach does not need to continue to invest into recruiting, but for the first year if you wish to bring quality players in I have found my plan works. Also if you are able to recruit a world recruit and a 5 star at that, along with good play, you'll find plenty of points to improve your coach. I've had great success with this as I've waited for quality assistants to appear after the championship. This is just the start to your career I wish you don't waste all of your coach's time on recruiting like I've done some seasons. Recruiting lots got me a team with my worst player an 85 overall, so I'm not going to bash it.

[Infallable]

I actually use Lahti's strategy. I've never really noticed a big affect in my players from practicing anyways.

[dawilleyone]

yeah, I think Lahti's stragey is more useful especially when you sim games. I mean I know its fun to play your way to championships, but I find it more rewarding to build a program through recruiting and beat the computer at its own game.

One thing about recruiting world players. IF they are a top ranked world player say Top 10 or higher they WILL get snatched up by a top 10 program late in the season. Its better to get a lower ranked 5 start or high 4 start anway as they will stick around for 4 years and be really dominant by year 3.

[cae_b_c]

I actually use Lahti's strategy. I've never really noticed a big affect in my players from practicing anyways.


Im not saying your sliders are easy, but the sider set I use, really affects the awarness of my players. If I use 20% on Off. in a week, my players don't run the plays. I need atleast 25% to get them to run the more through sets.

I think the "practice" thing is necessary. But there are weeks when you will get weak teams and may not need practice, or even really tough teams that you have no realistic chance of winning. (ie small conf. (74rating or lower) v. top 25 teams). Then maybe its ideal to turn down your practice time.

Also a stratgy for recruiting would be to use the schedule and slot weeks that you can dedicate to recruit.

Like slot 1 game in a week so that you have more time to recruit, or have weak games so you don't have to put much time in game prep (practice time).

[littlemc6969]

If you have game preperation all the way up how high can a players ratings increase i see them increase 1 or 2 points (im playing default difficulty) but is that all to expect??

[goduke_0403]

you can still never get 5* world recruits.. vt and penn get them usually..i get so frustrated:(

[Donovan_F_McNabb]

yeah, I think Lahti's stragey is more useful especially when you sim games. I mean I know its fun to play your way to championships, but I find it more rewarding to build a program through recruiting and beat the computer at its own game.

I agree with that. It looks like there's a problem with this year's version, though. I just started my first legacy and it doesn't look like you can adjust the lineups at all. That will take a lot of the strategy out of the sim method. I don't want to depend on what the computer thinks is the best lineup.

[LSU Figting Tiger]

I agree with that. It looks like there's a problem with this year's version, though. I just started my first legacy and it doesn't look like you can adjust the lineups at all. That will take a lot of the strategy out of the sim method. I don't want to depend on what the computer thinks is the best lineup.
I don't know if you have PS2 or Xbox but you need to go to rosters and if you have PS2 hit the start button or something like that. If that's not it just go to rosters and wait they have controls for what to do with which buttons at the bottom of the screen. That's how I found out where it was.

[JakePGator]

you can still never get 5* world recruits.. vt and penn get them usually..i get so frustrated:(

That's true! They're always bogarting my recruits ! :)