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Hall Of Fame
OVR: 41
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Tennessee
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Re: Let's Talk Recruiting ( CFB 25)
Recruiting in real life is a year-long grind for coaches that has a lot of luck involved as well, or at least a lot of playing the odds. It's never felt like that was represented well in the past NCAA games. Instead, EA continued to streamline and simplify the process and I hated that from day 1.
To have the recruiting side of things feel more authentic to the sport, I think EA has to tackle a couple of key aspects.
First, ambiguity. Do not tell me I am earning 650 points a week and am 50 points behind the top team for a recruit. Have the recruit relay feedback to me himself that I have to trust to go off of. An example is me clicking on a recruit's card and having a variety of quotes that could appear there giving you an idea of where you stand. Some examples below:
"You're my top school"
"You're in the top 3(or 5, 10, etc)"
"I don't have a favorite yet, but you're definitely up there"
"I am completely locked in and shutting things down with other schools"
"Don't waste your time on me coach"
"It's too early in the process for me to have anything narrowed down yet, coach"
There could be many more, but these give you an idea of where you stand with the recruit without making it too simplistic and gamey. I still can clearly see if I am the top school, the top 3, 5, 10, whatever, or if the recruit has no interest, but I don't get definitive numbers telling me exactly where I stand. I also have to trust that what the recruit is telling me is 100% truthful.
Being setup this way would lead to more suspense with some recruits as they could go all the way down to either signing day where all you know is you are one of their top 2, 3, or 5 schools, but you don't know if you are number 1. You spend all year recruiting some kids and have no numbers spoiling what will happen on signing day. Instead, you actually have to get to and through signing day in game and see what surprises are in store.
You could have been on an in-state 5-star DT all year that continued to say you were in the top 3 all year along with 2 other users in your dynasty and on signing day you are who he chooses. Or, he chooses a buddy. Or, imagine a recruit saying you're their top school all year, you trust that, don't recruit them as hard, then on signing day they flip to another user or your biggest rival.
These are things that happen in real life all the time that the old numbers system simply did not represent.
Ambiguity also needs to be a thing in terms of scouting. I think the fog of war system Madden has in place with the draft prospects needs to be a similar approach EA takes with recruits.
Initially, recruits would have wide ratings ranges. An example is a QB have Throw Power A-C, Throw Accuracy Short, B-D, and so on. As higher rated recruits do events they may have their ratings naturally become slightly more accurate, but you never get a definite number value. Also, if EA would introduce on campus recruiting events, that would be another way for the player to select a number of recruits to host to get a boost in their scouting so you could invite 10 QB's to campus over the summer and have all of them go from having 3 letter ranges to 2 letter ranges. E.g. all your QBs have either A-C or B-D Throw Power ranges, but after they come to your event they all go to A-B, B-C, or C-D ranges, so you can slowly narrow down who you want to focus on.
The number of players that are able to be invited could be dependent on the program you are at if there was some sort of recruiting budget or something along those lines, or even just program prestige to keep it simple. And the coaches could all have scouting skill trees that played a role in how much you narrowed down their letter grades at each position. If your Defensive Coordinator was not a good scout, maybe half the defensive recruits would not see their rating ranges change at all after the event.
We should also see a similar page for recruits like the draft prospects in Madden that show some of the measurables for all the recruits and the accuracy of these times would be dependent on what events they went to. Your 5-star WR you are targeting may go to something equivalent to The Opening and get a lasered 40-time that you know is accurate, meanwhile the local 3-star WR that isn't doing national events has a hand-timed 40-time on their player card that could easily be faster or slower than they actually are, so you have less of an idea on how well they run.
That scenario there could lead to decisions needing to be made when inviting kids to campus for your events. Do you invite the 5-star WR even though you already have a very accurate view on where his ratings will sit, but you want the standing increase for having him on campus, or do you invite the 3-star WR to get more accurate measurables on him from having him run at your event, plus you get to narrow down his other ratings to see if he is the diamond in the rough he looks like.
Another thing that needs to be in the game are flips. This has to be represented. It's far too common in real life to not be represented again after all these years.
I think promises need to be a thing again, and play a bigger role. These, along with player tags/motivations and morale, can play a major role in who is transferring and why. If you recruit a 5-star QB that has Playing Time as his biggest motivation, but you don't play him much as a freshman, then he is more likely to hit the portal. If you promise him he will play every game, but not start, then keep that promise, it may be enough to keep him. Maybe EA even gives you the ability to promise kids they will start within 2 years, so you have the flexibility to RS that QB year one, then have him start the next few years. If you do start him, he is more likely to stay, if you don't start him year 2, he's gone.
Morale would be similar to Madden's. Motivations and personality types would play a role in how morale moves on a per player basis. A guy that is more team-first may not care that he has 3 receptions total over the last 4 games. If the team is winning, his morale is going up. A more me-first WR might have his own stats be what dictate his morale increases and decreases more. You could be 10-0, but he's got 19 catches for 167 yards, so his morale continues to tank as the year goes on which means he will be much more likely to enter the portal.
This would allow some "simpler" systems to all combine into making the recruiting and portal side of things full of depth. Player motivations could be something you uncover slowly over time the more you speak with a recruit. You may see a 5-star WR that is a stud athletically, but after recruiting him hard for 3/4ths of the season you uncover his personality type or motivations that show he is a more me-first type and not a team-first type. Do you still go after him hard and just deal with any potential drama he may bring, or do you drop him and go for the hometown lower rated kid that has his top motivation being Team Success?
I would imagine the morale system and player tags and motivations will come over in some way from Madden. I would love to think the scenario engine will as well, and it will be more fleshed out and tuned to replicate the collegiate game more. If that's the case, I'd love to see the player motivation, player tags, morale system, and personality types all come over from Madden and have more impact on what scenarios you can see in the game. This could lead to some true locker room leaders or cancers having a big impact on how your season goes.
You may pull a Jimbo Fisher and have plenty of talent on your roster, but most of them all have motivations that are more centered on their own performance, so when you go a couple of games where a few WR's don't produce as much, maybe they cause trouble in the locker room and as a result everyone on the entire team receives a big morale hit and thus your team performs worse since everyone has their ratings are also being hit.
On the flip side, maybe you recruited a lot of leaders and have one WR that is a drama king. Instead of him derailing the season and being a locker room cancer, you may have another WR with a Leader personality type along with your QB and C. You would get a scenario saying the WR was causing trouble in the locker room, but your leaders stepped in and as a result nobody but the WR gets their morale dinged. So the WR can continue to pout if he doesn't get the ball, but you did well enough recruiting good personalities and they keep the rest of the team in check.
I hope EA has found a way to go in this direction someway somehow. It would lead to team building being full of so much depth. It would use systems they already have in place. It would make dynasty mode more dynamic than it has ever been.
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“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
― Plato
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03-09-2024, 01:41 PM
