Posted by killbatman on 4/24/2014 2:07:00 PM (view original):
Yes exactly.  I think that particular case illustrates that showing up on the list isn't really the signal of a pulldown working..it just happens to coincide with it on most undecided players, so it seems that way.

And really, I think it can be a pretty big grey area in that case.  For a D2 sim with a very tight message, they might have the equivalent of what, 20 HVs in the player?  So of course our piddly amount of effort from the SVs isn't enough to crack that.  You get up to 40 SVs and maybe you show up, but of course that's not nearly as efficient as using HVs once he starts accepting them.  I suspect that point (for D3 reaching up to D2) is usually ~15 SVs.

I can vouch for this.  I just pulled down a local D2 player (as a D3 team) who was very tight with a D2 sim.  He was pulled down after the standard 10 SV + scholly, but I still couldn't crack his considering list.  I know he was pulled down because he began accepting HVs.  After a 12-15 HVs I made the list, but I was definitely behind.  Thankfully the kid was local and my conference had a bunch of postseason cash because it was very costly to take the lead and sign him.

Based on my experience, I would say that a sim that is very tight with a recruit equates to about 20-25 HVs.  I've also heard that sims spend about 50% of their budget on their "main target" (player they are very tight with).  That probably has some truth, maybe a little on the high side.

i just want to clarify, a guy coming down to your division indicates he dropped down to you - NOT that you pulled him down. at least, unless it changed drastically. back in the days when it was unclear if pulldowns existed, the proof that unequivocally demonstrated pulldowns did exist, was screen shots of players showing up in a higher division search, considering the school in question. a pulldown is not supposed to show in your division, thats the whole point, hes still at the point in his process where he would not be available to you, yet, he is considering you anyway.

for what its worth, ive heard this theory several times, that the pulldown point is different from the considering point. with undecided recruits, i don't believe thats true, i've tried too many incremental 1-2SV/1HV cycles to buy that (then again, it could have changed, this is years ago). minimally, i think that gap is very small. for players already considering a school, i absolutely think killbatman is right, you are able to recruit a player straight away before the considering point (assuming the other school has a lot of effort in). however, i also think killbatman's comments, which i believe are generally the most accurate and insightful in this thread, omit an occurrence which i do believe exists - where multiple people try to pull a recruit down, the recruit considers nobody, yet both coaches have sent upwards of 20 SVs and try HVs and they still do not work. its been so long its hard to say for sure, but im almost positive i experienced this myself, after being suspicious of a number of reports on the forums. i think what makes the finer points of pulldowns so complex are these two caveats - but i think they are in fact two distinct caveats, not just one - where players already considering someone, and players being pulled down by 2 schools simultaneously, behave differently than "normal" pulldowns. they seem to take more effort to pull down, despite considering no one. i also think for schools already considering someone, the "pulldown point" can be (but isn't always) different than the regular pulldown point, but i'm not sure about that. 

etta - to answer your original question, you know a player is pulled down when they will accept HVs or CVs. generally, this coincides with them considering you alone. the 10SV figure people throw around is misleading for a coach in your position, i think that is the problem. in d3 it takes slightly less than d2. in d2, for A+ schools, which is a normal situation for the posters here - 10SVs is usually sufficient to pull a player down. in d2, with lower prestige, this is rarely the case (especially outside the A range altogether). i have found 12-15 is usually the minimum for lower prestige schools, but i've also never coached C/D prestige d2 schools, so it could even be higher for those schools. my guess is its as simple as you need more SVs than the guidelines suggest, i think the guidelines here are generally misleading for lower prestige schools... in general i believe forum responses are written for consistent NT coaches with solid programs, trying to master the details or learn new strategies, to take it to the next level. not saying thats good or bad - just keep that in mind when reading, not all advice here is appropriate for a new coach, and rarely is it labelled as such.

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STOP READING PRECISELY RIGHT HERE. 

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no seriously, you should have stopped already, those stars you just read are the most intelligent thing you will read for the next 7 pages. ****, maybe for the next 20 pages, by the time i wake up tomorrow, hell it could even be FIFTY pages.

wait...
here is where things continue in sane fashion. 

Well I was gone pretty much all day and it seems people are really liking creating battles on my targets for sport, and I have 1 player on my roster so I'm pretty much sunk at this point. 

Pretty ridiculous. Have 30k to use and you still can't sign enough players for a team.

What the hell, now a guy that I was listed for just dropped me from his considering list.

F this noise. I was leading for him and a team from the same conference, same prestige comes in and he just drops me? I'm pretty much done. This exercise has really proven to me that this game really isn't worth my time and effort. None of this makes sense. The pulldown thing is so murky that even veterans can't explain it worth a crap, and now guys that aren't even pulldowns just drop me because someone else htat doesn't have any better of a team comes along. 

Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this. Might help if there was an FAQ that was worth a crap, but then I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise.

the fact that its not so easy is definitely one of the things that draws the rest of us in... despite many imperfections in the game. although i wouldn't be surprised if you weren't getting special treatment at this point... if most of those guys jumping you are guys you instantly recognize from the forums... then probably. if not, probably not. battles build upon themselves, you have to resolve them lightning fast so others don't sit around thinking of how you are possibly in a big expensive battle, making your recruits much more available. perception is reality, managing perceptions is one of the most (if not the most) important part of high level recruiting. thats usually limited to upper d1, but it can be true anywhere.

Posted by ettaexpress on 4/25/2014 12:02:00 AM (view original):
What the hell, now a guy that I was listed for just dropped me from his considering list.

F this noise. I was leading for him and a team from the same conference, same prestige comes in and he just drops me? I'm pretty much done. This exercise has really proven to me that this game really isn't worth my time and effort. None of this makes sense. The pulldown thing is so murky that even veterans can't explain it worth a crap, and now guys that aren't even pulldowns just drop me because someone else htat doesn't have any better of a team comes along. 

Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this. Might help if there was an FAQ that was worth a crap, but then I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise.

everyone who plays knows pulldown are the trickiest part of recruiting - that is intentional. in the old days, admin would just endlessly tell us they didn't even exist, regardless of their existence (there was maybe a 3 month period once, where they didn't and that is even questionable, i just may be ignorant to the method available at that time - but for 3 years, admin denied their existence). today, new admin, new take on communication, but its still not something details are provided on. 

that said, there is a pretty damn good explanation of pull downs in this thread, and from other veterans. all a number of others really missed is that you need more in your low d2 prestige position. pulldowns are meant to be a veteran tactic, many are highly successful without them, this has almost always been the case, you probably shouldn't be messing around with them so early, and DEFINITELY not with 11 openings. its a high cost, high risk proposition - 11 openings is sort of the worst time to get into that kind of proposition.

if this really all makes no sense, ill try to enlighten you - this is AUCTION STYLE recruiting, plain and simple. it is a slightly souped up version of plain vanilla auction style recruiting. you spend more, you win. spend a little more, you both show up, but you eventually win. spend a lot more, you show up alone, you win right at signings. the vast majority of HD recruiting is literally no more complicated than that.
 

Posted by ettaexpress on 4/25/2014 12:09:00 AM (view original):
It's not that it's not easy, it's that it's not even explainable. 

The budgeting makes no sense, the recruit behavior makes no sense, the pulldown thing makes no sense (either they're willing to go to a D2 or they're not, sending a coach to see them 15 times isn't gonna change that opinion).

I thought being able to recruit in D2 and going after a more diverse set of players was going to be fun. Turns out I can't even field a damn team now and even the recruits that I have offered scholarships and wer econsidering me jump ship at the drop of a hat for a program in my conference that pretty much is the same program as me. 

There's no explaining that. 

i just explained it, i edited my post while you were typing yours. auction style. very simple, plus some bells and whistles, that you really don't need to worry about to be successful in the make-the-NT-every-year sense of success. to win titles, yeah, you need to get past the basics.

if you asked if you should move to d2 without succeeding at d3 (read, being able to make the post season just about every year), you would have gotten a resounding NO. moving up to face harder competition without mastering the basics, you are not going to be in for an easy ride. sorry, but you really brought that upon yourself... for the first half of the existence of HD, you would not be allowed to move up, which most of us think was a good thing. you are supposed to have at least a decent understanding of the basics before moving up. knowing recruiting is auction style and you will win players with more effort, and with big gaps in effort, lower effort teams get knocked off... thats recruiting 101. there's nothing wrong with you not knowing, but i don't think its recruiting, auction style recruiting is about as simple as it gets...

Posted by ettaexpress on 4/25/2014 12:12:00 AM (view original):
"Veteran tactic?" Meaning that it's being intentionally held a secret how to really do it? Is that why there hasn't been any discussion of it? All kinds of how to threads and nothing ever explaining it. A lot of people dance around it in this thread but no one really put down anything concrete. 

Why shouldn't I be messing around with them so early? Real world you'd want to be involved early. Other people are obviously doing the same since they're on the same players I am. 

11 openings = money. That was my thinking. Why do I care to go to for weak players when I have money to supposedly compete for better ones?

from where i'm standing, not only are the basics of pulldowns explained here, but also every nuance that any coach in the game is aware of, to the best of my knowledge. there are also countless other threads on the subject.

nothing concrete? pulldown = scouting trips + scholarships. how much more concrete do you want? the amount it takes per recruit varies. the amount varies by prestige. its really not that complicated. i mastered pulldowns in my 2nd season and they were MUCH MUCH more secretive then, no coaches would even openly admit they existed. it was the insider trading of the day. granted, its more complex now - actually, not really, now it just takes twice the scouting trips - but ill still give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. but sheesh, go try it yourself. if you can't make it work, tell us exactly what you did and we can guess where you went wrong. i gave you my guess, i suspect its a damn good one. 95% of the time its not complicated, there are some edge cases - as evidenced by the discussion here. but 95% of the time, its cookie cutter.

and btw, no, veteran tactic simply means you should start with the basics. as in, go for guys in your recruiting pool. even on championship caliber teams i would have seasons where i didn't pull anyone down, you don't HAVE to do it to succeed. the reason its a veteran tactic is its high cost, high risk, for some not-gigantic reward. for an expert to take that risk, fine, but its usually a losing proposition for someone who is still trying to grasp the basics you have brought up here. thats why its a veteran tactic. frankly, this thread proves its not what you suggest, as two dozen people came out and tried to explain pulldowns to you.

Posted by ettaexpress on 4/25/2014 12:23:00 AM (view original):
Well I have one season left paid for so I could either do another season at Marietta and leave just in time to see my team be good (it's already rated basically on par or better with everyone in the conference except John Carroll), or try something else for a year and maybe it would be more interesting. I also wasn't interested in another year of dealing with idiots on the OAC coaches corner.

I know you all don't like people saying this but your post is insultingly simplistic. Even at that, i reject it. Recruiting is not auction style, otherwise I'd be leading for more guys because I have more money, more than some of them could possibly have spent. I felt like yo uhad some respect for me and then you throw out that garbage that suggests that you think I know nothing. I did manage to get some pretty good players in D3 despite not managing to successfully pull anyone down there either.

I feel like if it can be done in the game., then it should be in the book how to do it. Level playing field. But it appears some veterans want to keep that info for themselves while giving the impression that they're trying to help but not really answering the questions. 

this is so far off base. it IS simple auction style. dollars != effort, thats something you must learn early. if you haven't yet, now is a good time to start. you mentioned using 10 SVs on a guy in your division - terrible move - CVs and HVs are the cost effective tools, compared to SVs and calls/letters. these are the kind of basics you should have mastered in d3 before worrying about pulldowns - which - for the record - work as described. like i explained already, you have to consider the target audience when you read a response, like we all have to do with everything else in life - which is not someone who can't even make the post season in d3, not when they ask a question about THE MOST complex and risky part of recruiting (even though its not that complex if you get the hang of it, the complexity is strategy side, not mechanics side). every single coach who responded has pulled down many players using scholarship + scouting trips. thats how it works, we are not all lying to you. i never took you for a guy who wants to be spoon fed to the utmost degree. you say you don't like simple answers - yet you ask for exact explanations to the T of how things work! it makes no sense. ill give you the scale. top of d2, 10SVs pulls down most players. B range, 12 is a good start. C range, 14. D range, 16. you may always need 5 more, and 5% of the time things are crazy and complex and therefore you might have to try this twice to make it work (but probably not). is that 100% accurate? no, but its pretty damn close. you are too smart to need more than that to figure it out. so go figure it out already...