Taking the Mystery Out of Recruiting: Part I

Are you tired of the long drawn out mentally challenging battle that is recruiting in NCAA Football 08? Well, never fear, so are we! In fact, after playing 10 long seasons of Dynasty mode in my last Dynasty I was about ready to pull out my hair due to the complexity that is NCAA's recruiting system. I'm going to take a look at a few of DigitalSportsMania's finest users suggestions on recruiting in the coming days and let you judge for yourself if the massive undertaking is doable. Let's begin with a post from Milkmoney111.

First have CPU assistance on. Now, I go through and handpick my first 35 recruits. Usually I stick to guys in my pipeline and take the first 25 best players, then fill needs with the last 10. For example, I may pass up the 300th best player and a 4 star WR and get the 370th ranked player, a guard because I lack depth there.

I usually offer scholarships in the first couple weeks to all of them, because if not, they start committing to other universities. The first few weeks I try to make contact with all 35 recruits. Just about 30 minutes (game time) on each one to gauge their interests. Start by unlocking your teams strengths. For example, if you have 2 elite categories, unlock those for every player. Then progressively unlock categories from higher rank down. After about 3 or 4 weeks, start hammering your prize recruits. Talk to them at least 45 minutes a week. Keep track of who you are talking to so you don't ignore a recruit for 4 straight weeks.

I usually set up my visits for later in the year for a couple reasons. One, you have their preferences unlocked and also the extra push you get from their visit is HUGE in overall interest. You will jump up their favorite list with a good trip. Just make sure you win the game.

There is another post on this page that will help with pitches so I'll leave that part out (See the "smiling face" thread I started, sorry I didn't copy the link).

Now, as soon as I have recruits commit to other colleges, I go into the prospect database and either pick up the next best available pipeline players or the next best available pipeline players for positions I am thin at. Put them on your recruiting board and throw in some calls to them. They should already have you high on their list so you may be able to get them to commit to a visit pretty easily. I always get 4 or 5 good, solid players this way when the CPU assistance would go after lesser caliber players.

By following this, you should be able to get 15-20 very good recruits. Don't worry that the CPU assistance will pick up 4 or 5 shmucks because they will most likely be deep on the depth chart and when you trim your rosters at the beginning of the year, you will end up cutting them anyway.

This may sound like a long time, but I often times find the recruiting portion of the game more fun than the game itself once you get caught up in it. It actually ads about 15 minutes at the end of each game. Not that big of deal.

The key is you are never going to end up getting your top 25 guys you targeted, so be quick to hit that player database when guys commit elsewhere. This is just how I attack recruiting. I'm sure other guys will have different opinions and tips how to do it though.

Hope that helps a little...

Now that you've read what Milkmoney has to say, what are your suggestions for how to make recruiting a bit easier in NCAA Football 08?