Moose's Recruiting Guide

Putting together this guide which I hope is helpful to others. This has been the product of tons of discussion on the Discord channels with various other users, and 100's of hours of game play. Hopefully you find this helpful and insightful.

Introduction

This guide has been revised and updated as of 1/22/2025 to include game build v1.0.1

A friend of mine coached college football for more than 30 years; he once said to me when talking about a game "usually it's not about the X's and the O's but it's more about the Jimmy's and the Joe's". By which he meant that scheme and brilliant play calling aside, most often the team with more talent and a deeper roster will win.

How do you get a talented, deep team? You recruit well. Everything starts with recruiting. Most of your time spent in this game will likely be in recruiting. During the long Beta phase, one Discord participant posted "really, it's a recruiting simulator" and I laughed because it's largely true.

I have found a method which works for me and allows me to build competitive teams. I believe if you follow this guide you will see similar results.

For reference, I typically play using the JeffMod custom universe file available for download from the Discord. I usually start a career with one of the many "have nots" of the College Football world - schools such as NMSU, SHSU, or Wyoming. Lately I've been on a Missouri State kick. And using this method, I've built them up from the worst program in C-USA to a 10 star dominant program. Hopefully you see similar success.

A few points I would like to make up front:

• First, the recruits you are going for do not care about how you are performing on the field this season. What they care about are (a) your five school attributes which together are your "School Level" (stadium, facilities, marketing, academics, and campus lifestyle), (b) your school's Prestige, (c) playing time (where they will fit on the depth chart), (d) proximity to home, and (e) NIL money. How a given recruit will feel about your school is a derived result of how much importance they place upon those attributes, and how your school grades in those attributes. In other words, there is (as one Discord contributor put it) no way to "punch above your weight class" in this game;
  
• Second, I've attempted to create a process that does not take a ridiculous amount of time. I personally do not care about getting the absolutely best class I possibly can, if I can save a ton of time and still get good classes regularly. I'm not going to export the recruit rosters to spreadsheet to figure out which recruits have the absolute best 40 yard dash times or benchpress metrics. Anyone that wants to get that granular - I salute you. That's just not how I enjoy playing the game;
  
• Third, recruiting has a rhythm. The first thing you do each year is create a list of 40 recruits who you *might* want to sign. You spend the pre-season (spring and summer) getting to "know" those 40 so that when the season starts you will know which of those 40 you want to make formal "offers" to. You spend the season trying to woo as many of those athletes that you extended offers to as possible. At the same time you keep scouting the pool of all recruits so that you have alternates when things don't go your way. During post-season, you are working on rounding out gaps on your roster and managing your athletes that are considering leaving early (early draft, transfer portal) while also looking at the transfer portal for talented opportunities. The season ends and you start the whole process over again - it is very complex at first, but once you get used to the rhythm it really does become routine;
  
• Fourth, recruiting can be frustrating. When you are in one of those "have not" schools you are going to lose a LOT more recruiting battles than you win until you start building up the factors that motivate recruit attraction. It is NOT uncommon for me in my first years to only sign 5 or so of my "first 40". This is because in the early going your school is not well-developed and your coaches are not highly skilled recruiters. So you have to be willing to accept that in recruiting you are going to lose battles - don't lose sight of the goal of putting together the best class you can in your current situation;
  
• Fifth, you can build a winning program entirely from recruits that no one else wanted. You won't beat the big schools or be national champs. But you absolutely can build a program that will get 8 - 10 wins per year from those "bottom of the barrel" alternates that you signed. And that allows you start driving up your prestige, which attracts boosters resulting in increased revenue. Money means you can invest in improving your School Level. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Anyway, wanted to get that stuff out of the way before diving into the "how to" portion of this guide. Thanks for reading, hope this is helpful to you!!

Good luck, have fun!

Basic Concepts

Moose's Recruiting Philosophies

This section of the guide will cover some basic concepts which are important and will be referred back to throughout this guide.

Be Realistic

Before we begin, you need to have an honest look at your school. No gentle way to say this but you need to be real. Of the ~3,250 recruits available each year, only ~50 are 5 star, another ~300 are 4 star, ~1,900 are 3 star, another 800 are 2 star and ~200 are one star. Where does your school "fit" in terms of the game's rating of schools based on Prestige (10 max) and School Level (60 max)? If you are running one of the top programs in the country - tOSU, Alabama, USC, ND, Texas, etc. then you can safely compete for the "top shelf" recruits. If you are ANYONE else and you aim that high - you are going to be frustrated with the results. The further away you are from that tier, the lower you should set your sights.

However, don't be overly concerned with star ratings and recruiting class ratings. If you keep recruiting deep, balanced classes of 2* recruits with high potential (more on that very important topic later) then you WILL be successful - your team will start winning games. You will gain in prestige, get more and better boosters. You will start making it to more exclusive bowl games. And with that extra revenue you will be able to invest into your School Level. And, eventually, you will be looking down on the "big boys" of the college football world, at which point you will be taking their 5* targets and laughing at them along the way.

But Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm usually starting at a very lowly Sun Belt or C-USA team and therefore the guys I'm looking to attract are 2* guys. As my school grows, I increase this slowly over time.

You can't fake Interest

The biggest mistake I've seen guys make recruiting is they simply do not respect that this is basically a database game and the game shows you approximately what your base attraction level is for each recruit. The least ambiguous way to understand how much a recruit might be inclined to ultimately sign with your school is shown in Interest. Each week you earn points for each recruit on your "board" - the base points are derived from your Interest. Higher Interest means higher base points each week, base points add with actions such as Coach Pitches, visits, NIL money, and scholarship offers. But if two schools are recruiting the same kid, and one has an advantage in Interest then that's the school the kid will almost certainly sign with.

Be Balanced

It is very important each year to sign a balanced class. You don't want 10 OL and no skill positions or DL - you want a nice balance each year based on positional needs. After 3+ years in the job, you will find that the practice of recruiting balanced classes really pays great dividends.

I try to sign one each of QB, TE, and K, two each of RB, WR, LB, CB and S, and three each of OL and DL which is a total each year of 19 guys recrutis signed. That's my "core class". Some years I may have room for more, others for less - you sort of adjust as you go.

In order to give myself a good opportunity to sign my "core class" when I initially setup my "board", I target 3 x TE and K + 4 x QB, RB, WR, LB, CB and S + 5 x OL and DL for 40 targets. This is my optimal board. I refer to this as 4+4+4+3+5+3+5+4+4+4=40.

Don't waste your $$$ on NIL until you're ready

Believe it or not, you don't have to spend ANY NIL money to build a team that can compete in the lower conferences. You simply need to target and pursue recruits that don't care about NIL - they exist. For each of the potential things a recruit might be interested in, including NIL, there is a different rating level from "Maximum" to "Not at all". If you target only recruits who do not care about NIL you can sign that guy without making him any NIL offers. Which allows you to conserve funds to invest in your School Level. Then - once you have the best facilities in all of CFB, spend NIL $$ as you see fit.

Understand "Active Recruiting" versus "Passive Recruiting"

If a recruit is on your "board" of 40 when you forward the game each "week" (go from Spring 1 to Spring 2 or from Week 3 to Week 4) then you will get a base amount of points - that base amount is derived from the Interest the recruit has in you school. Thus, just having a recruit on your "board" you are "Passively Recruiting" him. Also, each week a recruit is on your "Board" you gain 5% scouting for that player.

When you assign a coach to talk up a recruit (you get 12 of those each week - during pre-season and season), or you have a recruit to "Camp" (you get 10 of those each week only during pre-season) you are "Actively Recruiting" him and you gain additional points over and above the base amount above. Generally speaking, "Passive Recruiting" will not win a head-to-head battle against a school that is "Active Recruiting" the same recruit. So you have to know when to throw in the towel.

Be a Ninja!!

However, if you are passive recruiting a guy, and the other schools haven't offered him yet, and you sneak an offer in after the recruit has reached the "May commit soon" tier - you might just "Ninja" that recruit. How it works is this: once a recruit has received enough points that they are ready to commit (think of it as crossing a threshold) each week there is a random chance of them committing. At that point they will commit to the school on their list that has the highest points and has offered them. So if I'm 3,000 points down but none of the other schools higher than me have offered yet, then I may well get that recruit. We will be talking about this more later. This is a great way for an underdog school to win a few recruiting battles each year. I'd estimate I "pull" 3 or 4 of these recruits each year.

Spring 1

Spring 1

This section of the guide will cover getting through the first "week" of the season.

Preseason is broken down into four distinct phases - Spring 1, Spring 2, Summer 1, and Summer 2. The first, and most complex part of the preseason recruiting is establishing your "board" (or list of 40 guys you are initially interested in), which is done at the beginning of Spring 1.

Spring 1 - Setting up your "Board"

Spring 1 is the start of the new football year; the very first thing you need to do is to setup your "board" - by which I mean that from the 2,650 or so recruits available each year, you narrow to 40 recruits that you are actually interested in - these are your "targets".


How to fill your recruiting "board" (your first 40 targets):

• First, go to the "Recruiting" interface and "All Recruits" (should start there if you have noone on your Target List);
  
• Second, you may note that there is a "View recommended targets" button - ignore this for now. The AI recommendations are typically crap - we will talk more about this below;
  
• Third, filter out the star ratings you believe you don't want - go to All Recruits and remove 1 star and possibly two or three star recruits depending on your school (remember from above - be realistic regarding your expectations);
  
• Fourth, look at one position at a time - I start with QB and work my way through the positions. Do this by using the "Position override" drop-down. Now your "All Recruits" interface should be showing you all of the QBs of your desired * level;
  
• Fifth, sort by "Interest in SCHOOL (abbreviation for whichever team you are playing)" - this means that the QBs of your desired * range are listed in Interest. The seven levels of Interest are "Very high", "High", "Med-high", "Medium", "Med-low", "Low", and "Very low";
  
• Sixth, some of your recruits already have a certain % of scouting done. Perhaps this is because they are from an area proximate to your school location. Or because your AI coaching staff added them to the "recommended" list of recruits. Doesn't matter - but if their Potential is already shown, do NOT any recruit who is not a "B-" or higher Potential; and
  
• Seventh, for each position, select the desired number of players (using the "4+4+4+3+5+3+5+4+4+4=40" method above) choosing the most interested ones of the * ratings you find acceptable; if maintaing a low NIL is important to you then make sure to click the "View Details" button of recruits and only select recruits to whom NIL is not important. If for a given position you can't find enough interested players of the * level you are looking for with the NIL priority you find acceptable, you may want to look at a lower * level.
  
• Eighth, once you've selected your 40 you are ready for the remaining activities for Spring 1 Recruiting which are: (1) Invite to Camp, (2) Pitch Recruits, and (3) Scout - more on this below!

Invite to Camp

Hey - congratulations!! You've built your first board of 40. Don't fall in love with any of the guys - most of them probably won't be around long. You really don't know much about them other than they are interested in your school. One of the ways you learn more about them is to have them to camp. During each week of preseason you get to invite 10 players to Camp. This is what I do:

First, click on "My Targets" and sort by "Potential" - most of your guys will be "??" because you do not yet know their potential. If you have any guys exposed, that's great. If they are C+ or lower, remove them from your list. Go back to "All Recruits" and following the methods above, fill that position back up. In the long run, you don't want low potential guys in your program if you can help it. Once all the guys are either "??" or "B-" or higher, you're ready to go.

Second, sort your "My Targets" by "Priority order" and then click on the "Change priority order" button. In the interface that comes up, in the top right click "Sort targets by..." and choose "Recruit rating" - choose save to close this interface. You will now find that your "Board" is sorted based on recruit ratings.

Third, invite your recruits from 1 to 10 to camp by choosing "Invite to Camp" in the "Action" column. Once 10 guys are invited, move to "Pitching"

Coach Pitches

After you have invited 10 players to camp, sort your "Board" by "Potential". As before, most of your guys are probably "??" but if you happen to have any who are "B-" or higher, pitch them. A "pitch" is one of your coaches (HC, OC, or DC) talking to that recruit trying to "woo" them to your school. You get 12 of these each week. Use all 12 - target highest potential first, and then once all the B- and higher guys have been pitched, pitch the ?? guys in order of priority (if you sort the way I document, they should already be in the correct order). After you've spent your 12 Pitches you are now ready to spend your scouting points...

Scouting

Scouting is the last recruiting action I do in Spring 1. We are not trying to scout our "targets" - we are trying to scout the pool of ~3,200 guys who are NOT our targets to reveal the potential of players who may replace the deadbeats that we drop from our "Board" later in the process. This is where I do use the "View recommended targets" list. Click on that. When it loads, click on the "exclude targetted recruits" check box (don't worry - you'll scout your targets naturally through camps and pitches and passive recruting during the off season). Now sort by "Scout %" and scroll to the bottom. You will find that even the least scouted player on this list is already at 25%. Each time you scout a player, you gain 15% knowledge of that player. You need 30% to reveal that players Potential rating. Ergo, everyone on the "recommended targets" list is only one scouting away from knowing potential. Spend your 10 scouting activities (possibly more if some of your coaches have the Scouting badge), one per player, revealing the Potential of each as you go.

Congrats!! You are done with Recruiting for Spring 1. Go do your player development from the main page and when ready forward the game to Spring 2...

Spring 2 thru Summer 2

Spring 2 thru Summer 2

Recruiting is much less complex and faster for the next 3 weeks which are Spring 2, Summer 1, and Summer 2. You really should get through each week quite quickly. Each week, do the following:

Schedule Camp

As described in the Spring 1 session above, sort your Board by Priority Order (having saved that to be based on Recruiting Rating thus it being static). During Spring 2, invite Recruits 11 through 20 to camp. During Summer 1, invite recruits 21 to 30 to camp, and during Summer 2 invite recruits 31 to 40 to camp. By the end of Summer 2, each of the recruits on your "Board" will have come to a camp. It doesn't matter the recruit mix each camp. Doesn't matter if there are 3 QBs. So don't sweat the details here.

Coach Pitches

As you did in Spring 1, keep using those Coach Pitches to woo your targets. Again, you have a limited number of them - 12 to be precise. 6 from your Head Coach (HC), 3 from your Offensive Coordinator (OC), and 3 from your Defensive Coordinator (DC). Sort your targets list by Potential, spend your pitches on any players who are B- or higher. Spend remaining on ?? guys. As you progress through the weeks of preseason, fewer guys will be ?? and more will be known potential. .

Scouting

Keep scouting your "recommended targets" list until the Potential is revealed on all the players on that list (excluding targeted recruits). Once there is no one that list to scout (probably during Summer 1), you then need to go to the "All Recruits" tab to find more guys that you can reveal the potential of with only one scouting action.

Do the following: In the "All Recruits" tab turn on the following filters: "Min Potential" set to "Unscouted only", "Stars" set to "5, 4, 3" (excluding 2 and 1 star recruits), and "Offers" set to "None". You are going to use this filter a LOT in this game so I recommend saving it.

Once the all recruits are filtered as described, choose the "Sort recruits by" drop down and select "Scout %" and then select the "Exclude targeted recruits" (as you did with the "Recommended" list) so that you are not seeing any of the guys already on your "Board". As before, spend one scouting activity per player to reveal the potential of as many players as you possibly can. This will be beneficial later.

Recruit Visits

Starting in Summer 1, you will see that some of your recruits are open to accepting an official visit to your school. I strongly recommend scheduling guys, of potential B- or higher only, as soon as they indicate they are open to scheduling. If you wait, other schools may grab the premium weeks and that may work against you.

That said, following are some recruit visit strategies:

• First, later visits get a higher "bonus" than earlier visits. But if you schedule too late, you might miss the opportunity entirely because the recruit may well commit to another program before scheduling your visit. So, look at your schedule for the year and specifically your home games. You want to schedule all visits earlier than week #12 if possible, preferably week #10 and earlier. But you need 4 home games to fit in all 40 guys on your board. So figure out (a) which 4 of your home games you want to host recruit visitors and (b) of those 4 games, which are most likely to be the best games (where you want to schedule your most desired guys);
  
• Second, during the Summer periods you haven't offered scholarships yet (can't do that until week #1 of the season) so it can be hard to tell which of the guys on your board you really want versus which ones you will never offer. That said, as a general rule by Summer 2 you will know the Potential of most of the recruits on your board. If the recruit Potential is B- or higher, there's a pretty good chance that you will eventually offer him. Therefore, invite him to one of your weeks that you want your most desired guys to attend. On the other hand, if potential is C+ or lower, you are going to drop him from your Board anyway so don't bother inviting the player;
  
• Third, do NOT overshedule guys of the same position for visits. Unlike inviiting recruits to Camp where it does not matter what positions, with official visits it very much does matter. If you over-invite the same position, you will get negative points. Specifically, QB and K - only schedule 1 per week. RB and TE - do not schedule more than 2 per week. All other positions you can schedule 3 per week except OL you can schedule 4 per week. The game will NOT stop you from scheduling more than these numbers per week, but will indicate a warning so be aware of that.

Regular Season, Week #1

Regular Season - Week #1

This is THE most important week of the recruiting cycle following my method. This is where you make scholarship offers to players that you want at your school. Do this:

Flush the trash...
Open up your Targets, sort by Potential. Drop players of unacceptable potential. Absoultey drop anyone that is D+ or lower, I typically drop all players who are C+ or lower. There is some wiggle room here. For instance, the 5* guy who is 79 OVR and C Potential - that's going to be a pretty darned good player. But that 3* guy sitting at 63 - it's going to take several years for him to contribute, if he ever does. So I may keep the extremely rare C Potential guy, but generally they won't find a roster spot on one of my teams.

Spend our Scouting Activities
Again, trying to get maximum return on investment - go to All Recruits, use your saved filter (you did save that, right?? Potential = Unscouted, 3* or higher, no offers?? Exclude guys still on our "Board" and sort by Scouting %??) and spend your scouting actions one per player revealing potential. Hopefully you find some more B- or higher guys...

Replenish your Board
Since you are already in All Recruits and you just scouted, change your filter. Change the "Min Potential" to "B". This will show you all the B and A potential guys not on your board that you are aware of. Sort by "Interest in YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION" - because in order to actually land recruits, it's still important that they are interested in what you have to offer as a school. Start filling your board back up, trying to balance things out as much as you can to the 4+4+... model I've talked about before. It may not be perfect. Maybe there aren't enough QBs or Ks who are B- or better. Hopefully between the guys you did NOT "flush" from above, and the replacement guys you are adding you can get your board back to 40


Offer Scholarships

You want to make one offer to each of the following positions: QB, TE, K;
You want to make one or two offers to each of the following positions: RB, WR, LB, CB, S;
You want to make two or three offers to each of the following positions: OL, DL; and
You may want to make additional offers if there are players of sufficient Potential remaining.


How to proceed:

• Sort your My Targets list by "Interest in YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION";
  
• Use Position Override to look at QB;
  
• Determine who the most desirable QB is of the targets you have, and offer that person a scholarship;
  
• If that player also has green text indicating ready for a visit, schedule that. As per the above blurb on scheduling, the guys you offer you want to pack into your last few home games each year - the guys you are NOT offering can be scheduled for the earlier games;
  
• Change your Position Override to show RB. Do the same thing but maybe offer 2 (if there are 2 really good ones or you are graduating many seniors at that position this year). Then move to WR - and so on and so forth changing the numbers offered as above; and
  
• When done, you will have made from 13 to 19 offers. Hopefully somewhere right around 15 or so. Change your filter to show all positions and then sort by Overall. If there are any great players who you have not yet offered, consider offering them as well.

Some "wisdom" on the decision-making process

As a general principal, Potential is the most important aspect to look for in recruiting. However, it is not an absolute rule. I have seen D potential players out pace A potential players. There is a certain amount of randomness built into the player development process. As a guide, my experience is that a full grade level of Potential is worth maybe about 3 points of OVR. So if I have two recruits at WR - one is 67 OVR and B Potential and the other is 64 OVR and A potential, I will offer the 64 a scholarship before I offer the 67. But if I have a 57 with A against a 67 with B, I will offer the 67 every time.

Why do I offer so early? First - there is no penalty to offering early. You gain plus points when offering a scholarship but you don't gain anymore offering on Week 8 than Week 1 - so why not offer early? Further, in terms of the user interface, it makes later weeks in recruiting MUCH easier. If you didn't offer him - don't pitch him. You only have 12 pitches - use them on the guys you actually want! The other guys on your target list are at this point realistically only going to remain there in order to be "passively recruited" and also early visit weeks fodder.

I've offered scholarships - now what?

Do this:

• Sort your entire My Targets list by Points Ahead;
  
• Starting at the top of your list, go through your entire list looking for guys who are ready to visit and schedule them following the guidance previously provided;
  
• When you get to the bottom of your list (#40 - the last guy on page 3) start scrolling back up - look for the blue text indicating that a certain recruit has an offer from you. Pitch every person you can (you can't get them all - you only have 12 pitches) starting with furthest behind and allocating the best pitches you can (will vary year to year based on coach badges); and
  
• When you have spent all your pitches, you are done with your "My targets" list.

But wait - this is confusing, what type of horrible guide is this?

First - it's a very horrible guide. Feel free to comment to that effect.

Second - starting in Week #1 and proceeding all the way into the playoffs, you keep scouting[/b] scouting unoffered guys to add to your board hoping to create opportunities, especially to "Ninja".

Third - thanks for sticking with me - hopefully this will all make sense as you do it!!

Regular season - weeks #2 - #3

Regular Season - Weeks #2 & #3

The next several weeks of recruiting are simpler and start looking more like the "routine" that you will get used to.

Basically you are going to be doing the following three activities during these weeks:

• Pay attention to your "Active Recruits" - these are the targets you have made offers to, the guys you actively want and hope to get 100% of (you'll probably only get 50% when first starting out - but as you build up your program you start getting 80% plus eventually). Go to My Targets and click the box saying "Show only those with YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION offer". Now you are looking at guys you've offered. Sort by "Points ahead (estimate)" and go to the bottom of your list, and allocate your most powerful pitches. As you work your way up, you are making less impactful pitches (this will depend on your coaching badges and coach recruiting skills) but with these guys you are hopefully either ahead or behind by less. Also, while you have your list of "Active Recruits" up - make sure any with the green "Can schedule visit" flag are invited to one of the two premium visit weeks (your last 2 home games of the season);
  
• Invite your "Passive Recruits" to visit - after spending your 12 Pitches, again click the check box for "Show only those with YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION offer" so that now you are looking at your full Board. Keep the sort "Points ahead (estimate)" just for consistency. Scroll through your list looking for recruits with the green "Can schedule visit" flag are invited to any week OTHER than the two premium visit weeks. Fill earlier weeks first.
  
• Keep Scouting!! - go to "All Recruits" and load your saved filter (told you - you use that thing a LOT). Set the "Sort recruits by" the recruiting % until you have gotten all the recruits that started 15% scouted or more. Sometime around weeks 2 or 3 you should run out of these guys that you only need to invest one recruiting action to reveal potential. At this point switch the sort to "Recruit rating" (which is the default value btw) - you are now looking at the highest rated players that nobody has offered and are unscouted. Because teh scouting is at 0%, you have to spend 2 scouting activities per recruit to see their potential so it will go slower revealing players (again, coach badges may result in you having more than 10 scout actions each week). Don't worry about adding back to your Board yet - that will come in Week #4 and beyond...

Regular season - Week #4

Regular Season - Week #4

Week #4 is another important week. This is because by Week #4 99% of all recruits are ready for visits and this is when you see the AI teams start making their "offers" en mass. So I've broken week #4 down a bit for the reader. Do this:

Official Visits
Scroll through your list of targets, looking for players with the green "Can schedule visit" text and schedule them to visit your school. Fit them in wherever you can.

Clean the Board
As you have your Targets open, sort by Points Ahead. Go to the end of the list - you will find many players that you are WAY behind on. This is because other schools are actively recruiting whereas you are only passively recruiting. What I do, and what I recommend you do, is this: any recruit for whom I am not in first place, who I have not offered, and who has offers from other schools - I remove them from my Board. There's no point in passively recruiting players that you are not going to sign so make room for others.

Pay attention to your "Active Recruits"
In My Targets, click the box saying "Show only those with YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION offer". Keep the sort of "Points ahead (estimate)"; now you need to start taking a more thoughtful approach. On the one hand, you may have some recruits who are essentially "in the bag" because you are actively recruiting them and have built up such a huge lead that all the AI schools are either only passively recruiting or they aren't even on the board anymore. You can tell these by (a) you have a big lead and it's getting bigger every week; (b) many other schools only have a double "--" under their icon - indicating that they are earning 0 recruiting points for that recruit on the week - implying the recruit isn't even on their Board; or (c) the schools that are earning points are only earning the Base amount (100 or 200 depending on attraction level). Guys that are "in the bag" - they are the lowest priority to receive pitches.

Now go to the other extreme of your offered targets list - the guys who you are furthest behind. At some point, you may just need to give you because the recruiting race for a specific athlete is just hopeless. I call these guys "lost causes". Maybe you are a mid-tier school and the recruit is getting pursued by tOSU or Bama. Maybe the recruit is getting pursued by a school with a coach who is a top-level recruiter and has badges for exactly that type of recruit so they get +150 each week which you don't get. Be cautious before considering a guy a "lost cause" - I've been down 1,500 points and came back to get the guy. But I was down because the recruit had already visited the AI school, but not mine. The AI had already committed NIL money, but I had not. Once I did those things, the gap was made up.

In between your "in the bag" guys and your "lost cause" guys are the competitive races. This is your highest priority for recruiting Pitches. The competitive races that you are furthest behind in, working your way up your list towards the "in the bag" guys. Once you get to the "in the bag" you probably should invest in the "last causes" first just to keep a pulse on those recruits in case.

Scout and potentially add to your Board

By cleaning out your board as above, you probably created a lot of room. You probably only have ~20 guys left on your board - most of whom you've offered and some you are passively recruiting. Go to All Recruits and load your filter (told you - use that a lot), deselect players you have already targetted, sort by Recruit Ranking (which is default - shouldn't need to change anything) and spend your scouting actions looking for players of B- or higher potential. When you find one - Target them (thus adding to your board and gaining the benefit of Passive Recruiting).

That's week #4 - and a pretty good preview of what weeks #5 - #13 will look like.

Regular season - weeks 5 - 13

Regular Season - Weeks #5 - 13

From Week #5 on, you continue doing the same tasks you did in Week #4, as follows:

Official Visits
Scroll through your list of targets, looking for players with the green "Can schedule visit" text and schedule them to visit your school. As you keep adding B- or higher potential targets to your list (below), you'll have the opportunity to schedule them the next week. Once all your home games are full of visitors, skip this step because you know there's no room for new visitors.

Clean the Board
As before, remove any Targets for which (1) you are behind and (2) have one or more offers in hand from other schools. Keep the targets who do not have other offers. Offers are indicated by a little brown contract icon in the bottom right corner of the team icon. The guys with no offers represent your possible "ninja" opportunities!! (see more below)

Pitch your "Active Recruits"
As before, click the check box to show only the targets you have offfered already and make your 12 Pitches to them following the strategies previously discussed. As you get closer to the end of the season, you may end up not even having 12 guys on this list - they've signed either with you (hopefully) or with someone else. After Pitching your "Active Recruits", click the check box again to show all your targets and assign your remaining Pitches as you see fit;

Scout and potentially add to your Board

As before, keep scouting your filtered list looking for more B- guys to add and add them as you find them (the week after being added you'll be able to schedule visits for them). Eventually you will have scouted the Potential of all of the 3 star and higher guys. At this point, open up to 2 Stars and do the same; as a note, I recommend deselecting JC transfers who are 2 stars. In my experience, very few 2 Star JC guys ever contribute - they just are starting off with OVR which are too low and with only 2 years of eligibility remaining, they don't have enough time to gain OVR to make it up your depth charts so better not to waste the time.

In Week #7 - Spend some NIL!!

Eventually you will have to spend NIL. Generally as your school starts to get competitive, you can plan on it. You can resist for as long as possible but the fact is good players want to get paid. That doesn't mean you have to be frivolous with your money...

What I do is this:

• During Week #7 I look for My Targets who I have made offers to;
  
• Any targets that are "in the bag" - I do not offer NIL money to;
  
• Any targets that are NOT "in the bag" I click on the "No NIL deal" text and make an evaluation. If NIL deal importance is either "Not at all" or "Not very", I do not make them an offer. If it is anything else, I offer them the "Estimated market value";
  
• Even players who are "lost causes" I offer - just in case things with the leading school falls apart. If they end up not signing with me, I lose nothing. But maybe I stay in the race long enough to turn it around...
  
• Any players that I am trying to "Ninja" - I do NOT offer NIL. I'm way too far behind the leader to bother. I'm hoping they choose to commit before a higher ranked school in their preference list also offers;

How to be a Ninja!!!!

Starting in Week #7, you notice recruits start changing status from "Establishing favorites" or "Narrowing schools" to "My commit soon". Once a recruit is ready to commit, they may commit at any time. They will commit to whichever school on their list is the highest one to make an offer. This is why I've had you adding B- and higher potential players who have NO other offers. You can let other schools do the work of getting the recruit ready to commit, then you make your offer, none of the AI teams do, the guy commits to you even though you are 3,000 points down. You've literally put the minimal amount of work into the guy and yet signed him. Each year I sign 3-5 3 star and higher recruits this way.

That said, starting in Week 7, look at your My Targets for players who have "May commit soon" and make them an offer. Worst case is one of the AI schools ahead of you also offers - you've lost nothing. But you may be surprised at how effective this is over time.

Post Season Recruiting

Post Season

As you are approaching the end of the regular season, your recruiting effort for the year is winding down. Ideally, you have a dozen or so recruits already committed. When you finish Week 13 and jump ahead, quite a few will commit. More will commit after the CCG. Then during the bowl and playoff season, some may trickle in.

During the first three weeks of post season (technically Weeks #14, 15 and 16 - CCG prep week, CCG, and Awards Week) I keep looking at 2* recruits trying to find more B- and higher guys. You can never have too many on your Board. Starting at Bowl Week #1, I stop spending scouting actions on the "All Recruits" list and concentrate on scouting the guys on my Board up to 100%. This helps my final determination of who to offer and who to let walk away.

Also during those first three weeks of post season, I am more selective about which positions I am looking for. Basically where are my holes?? Every year it seems there's one or two positions that I just got unlucky on. Maybe all the guys I looked at during preseason (Spring and Summer) ended up being Potential D when that was revealed - meaning I just got unlucky. But then I added a bunch in Week 1 but I was already 1,200 points behind and never quite made it up. Again - sometimes luck goes against you. So I use the position filter to try and be more selective in adding recruits to my board during these weeks.

Sometime around the Bowl Week 1 (aka Week #17), the recruits who were my "Board" at Week #1 - they have mostly either signed with me, or I dropped them from the list. There may be a few stragglers left. The guys that I added from the "All Recruits" I'm trying to get to 100% scouted for final decision making. Come week #19 (Playoff SemiFinals week) I sort through my 2* guys, offer the ones I want. Keep the rest on my board as my last ditch reserves.

Come the final week of the Season - Week #20 (aka NCG) if you are running a top program, it's perfectly possible that you may have signed a great group of 20 4* and 5* recruits. You probably got the lion's share of the first ~15 guys you targetted way back in Week #1 plus you have the guys you "ninja'd" from Week #7 on. But if you are anyone else, you probably have one or two position gaps. If you are just starting out your save at a true "bottom dweller" school then you may have a TON of gaps. That's why you kept digging for those 2* guys with B- or higher Potential - to fill those gaps. Simply make offers to the best guys on your list.

Your goal is to have signed a recruiting class which approximately equals the number of seniors on your roster. Which implies that if you don't cut anyone, nobody transfers out, and nobody chooses to go professional early (and you can't convince them to stay) then you may not be very active in the Transfer Portal. But more on that below!!

Winter Recruiting and Transfer Portal!

Winter Recruiting and Transfer Portal

Between the NCG and the start of Winter Recruiting, some things have happened. The professional draft has occurred - potentially some of your guys left early and you couldn't convince them to stay (or their demands to stay weren't viable for you to meet). Potentially some of your rostered players decided they weren't getting enough playing time with your program and decided to leave. Either you couldn't convince them or made the strategic decision to let them leave.

You will likely enter the Winter Recruiting with a roster size of 75 - 80 of the maximum 85. Meaning you have 5 - 10 spots available on your team. You can fill those spots from the conventional recruiting pool (you probably have some uncommitted guys still on your My Targets list) or via Transfers.

What I do is this:

Winter Recruiting Week #1
First I sort my "My Targets" list Priority Order and set it the way I want it. The recruits I actually hope to sign (all recruits will sign at the end of Winter Recruiting) at the top, in order of priority. All the 2* "fillers" at the bottom, probably in order of OVR.

I then do some basic math - how many roster slots do I have open? How many of the recruits on "My Targets" do I truly want? What's the difference. For instance, my Roster is 78/85 so I have room for 7 players. But I have 2 players targetted on "My Targets" that I very much want (maybe a few 5* guys just waiting to sign??) - this means I have room for 5 transfers before I start accepting 2* guys...

I go to All Recruits and set the following filters: "Type" = "Transfer", "Current place in battle" = "Leader only (w/contact points)", "Min potential" = "B". I then sort by Overall. Note from above, I have room for 5 transfers. But I don't expect to get all of them - transfer competition is fierce. So I look for 7 (I always add 2 over what I actually have room for) transfers who meet this criteria. If I don't see enough guys of a high enough Overall to interest me, I perhaps open up things by allowing "Min potential" = "C" or "Current place in battle" = "Top 3 min (w/contact points)". The point is that I find 7 transfer players to target.

I now go to "My targets" interface and the newly added Transfers are at the bottom. I move them up the priority list so that they are directly below the normal recruits that I truly want. But they are above the 2* filler guys that I don't particularly care.

Once my "My Targets" is set in the right order of priority, I pitch the top 12 guys starting with #1 and working down making my best pitches to the guys I want most. So in this hypothetical example, my best pitches would be to the two 5* stragglers, then to 7 transfers, then my last 3 pitches would go the three 2* fillers with the highest OVR. I click on the button "Preserve actions between weeks" so that I don't have to redo this work the next couple weeks.

Winter Recruiting Week #2

Forwarding to week #2, all of my pitches are already set. Because I have that "Preserve" button checked. All I do this week is make offers to everyone on my list that doesn't have an offer. All the transfers, all the 2* fillers. I feel like Oprah handing out cars - "And an offer for you - and an offer for you - and everyone gets an offer!!"

Winter Recruiting Week #3

The only thing to do in Week #3 is spend your NIL money. If you play the game with the default settings, if you fail to offer at least 75% of NIL market value to a player, you take a huge penalty in recruiting. Which means you won't get the target. If I have a huge lead on the next school (say 500 points or more) I may offer only 75% of value - the interface tells you what that means. If the recruiting race is closer than that, I offer 100% of value.

The thrilling conclusion!!

At the conclusoin of the transfer portal, you sign every player that you extended an offer to, in order of priority, until your roster size is 85. So let's say in the hypothetical example I've been using that I signed one of my 5* guys (yay but still pissed about the one that got away) and 3 of my tranfer targets - I would then also sign the top 3 of my 2* fillers to add 7 to my previous roster size of 78 and thus be at 85.

And the year is concluded and we move forward eventually to Spring 1 and do it all again!!

I hope this guide (lengthy as hell, I know) was worth the read to you and helps you recruit well.

Thanks,
Moose

[joelkylesmith]

@Moosemedford,
I was talking about Week 1 to replenish the board, got 36/40 this time. What I was missing was I was Spring-Summer 2 Scouting sorting incorrectly by INTEREST IN SCHOOL instead of SCOUT %. So I was revealing half the recruits potential.

Now with sorting by SCOUT % I reveal more for the board by Week 1.

Thanks for the guide.

[Moosemedford]

Hey @JoelKyleSmith - you are looking at the steps for replenishing your "Board" in week #4 after dropping all your targets that you are not going to "get", yes?? I find about 40-45% of the guys I scout are A or B potential. So if I use all my scouting from Spring 1 to Summer 2 and Week 1 to Week 4 on guys who are NOT on my "Board" (because I will scout them via visits and recruiting pitches and just natural 5% per "week" anyway) - then theoretically even with only 10 Scouting Actions (no coach has the "Scouting" badge) then I should expose the ratings for at least 50-60 guys who are NOT on my Board. So, if 40-45% are A or B then I should have at least 20 - 27 A or B potential guys to add to my Board from the general pool of players.

Usually I have no problem in Week #4 filling my "Board" back up to 40.

I hope this helps.

[joelkylesmith]

Does this work for anybody?

Replenish your Board
Since you are already in All Recruits and you just scouted, change your filter. Change the "Min Potential" to "B". This will show you all the B and A potential guys not on your board that you are aware of. Sort by "Interest in YOURSCHOOLABBREVIATION" - because in order to actually land recruits, it's still important that they are interested in what you have to offer as a school. Start filling your board back up, trying to balance things out as much as you can to the 4+4+... model I've talked about before. It may not be perfect. Maybe there aren't enough QBs or Ks who are B- or better. Hopefully between the guys you did NOT "flush" from above, and the replacement guys you are adding you can get your board back to 40

I never have enough to get back to 40. Like 25/40 and a lot of positions are missing not just QB/K.

[Moosemedford]

@billstein2 - thanks for the kind words. Glad it's working out for you. Yeah, the "ninja" gets always give me a bit of a chuckle.

[Moosemedford]

@Hobbulator - sorry for the delayed response. I limit because frankly you can only "pitch" 12 each week. And I use the guys that I make offers to in later weeks to filter my "board" and only look at the guys I've offered - those are where my pitches go. Better to aim for an attainable number, and fill in with "ninja" gets in my experience. But hey - I'm not perfect. Take what you can from the guide, use it however it works for you, and incorporate your own methods man. Good luck!!

[billstein2]

Great guide.
Running Eastern Michigan (JeffMod FBS Universe) and in my third year.

As of week 13, five of my top eight commits are "ninja" recruits, that I never would have gotten without this guide.

[Hobbulator]

You want to make one offer to each of the following positions: QB, TE, K;
You want to make two offers to each of the following positions: RB, WR, LB, CB, S;
You want to make three offers to each of the following positions: OL, DL; and
You may want to make additional offers if there are players of sufficient Potential remaining.

Why limit the number of offered scholarships in Week 1?

[Moosemedford]

@kipk89 - thanks for your input, glad you've gotten good benefit from this!!!

[Moosemedford]

Nathan - thanks for your input. I hear you about complimentary visits. What I find myself doing is this (remember I target 5 x OL/DL, 4 x QB/RB/WR/LB/CB/S, & 3 x TE/K) - I look at my schedule. My last 4 home games each year are me "visitors games". I want most the guys that I really want to sign to visit as late as possible. Remember that I recommend signing balanced classes. So most years I try to sign 1 x QB/TE/K, 2 x RB/WR/LB/CB/S, and 3 x OL/DL for 19 signs. This varies year-to-year based on how many seniors are leaving my program. If I only have 13 graduates, I cut down.

That said, each of my "visiting weeks" 1, 2 & 4 (where 4 is the latest in the season) I invite 1 x each position (that's 10 total visitors, 1 of each position - hits all bonuses). In visiting week #3, I don't have any K or TE to visit, so I put in my extra OL and DL. Also hits the bonuses.

I hope this helps!!

[Moosemedford]

Hey guys - I apologize that I haven't really been spending a lot of time looking at this recently Live and all that.

@M.J. Caboose - The only thing that I can think of is that you may generally have your filters set too restrictively. Especially if you at a low prestige school. It's not uncommon for me in my first 3-4 years of a new save that 95% of my recruits or higher are only 2* - especially if I'm at a low prestige, low infrastructure school. But by continuing to sign high potential guys (especially "gems") 3-4 years into my save I am dominating my division and conference. Which causes in increase in Prestige, causes an increase in Boosters, generates revenue which means better infrastructure (training and academics first) and pretty soon I'm on my way. Hope that helps.