in my private dealings with seble, I told him that the lack of suitable recruits would put pressure on recruiting, which already was the most flawed part of the game.  He has admitted there is some collusion going on that it would be near impossible to police it all, so any that goes on gives those colluding a huge edge.  Second, there are several forms of implied collusion - i.e. not outright cheating, yet ....

1 - I'll start, my son plays in some d1 worlds, part of the time, very sporadically, such that I could not tell you what worlds he has at any given moment, yet every once in a while, when I start looking for bargain players late, I see his name on my sorts, I would never consider taking the recruit from him, ever, my guess is other fathers and sons, brothers, friends from the office, etc have the same thing going on
2 - some guys try to not battle conference mates, as they know post season money is one of the keys to long term success, some will even gang up on non conference mates threatening conf mates, this is not orchestrated by sitemail, just by experience, doing what is best for oneself by helping conf mates
3 - when you have 2 accounts in the same world, you are colluding, as you NEVER will compete with yourself, further you are seeing multiple sets of FSS data - sharing info, which helps recruiting enormously, even if it is not used directly

4 - There is the direct drafting and non compete clauses that have been going on in the game since it started.  One of my conferences a coach suggested colluding on the CC a few seasons ago, which I have not seen in a while.  I still  get sitemails off and on asking about my opinion if this coach is doing it, I usually watch, it is not that hard to tell.  A few times, if it seems apparent, I have forwarded my thoughts to CS, in general, that seems to help, seems esp seble has a pretty good feel for fixing collusion.  I used to get approached a bunch to collude as a young coach, have not in a long time as my position is pretty clear, I don't know if any of you get approached much these days or not.

Finally, when many equal recruits existed, most of this stuff was 'Who Cares', as when someone cheated you, you had multiple options to stay competitive - now, any slight edge gives top d1 coaches an enormous advantage, it has taken some of the fun out of the game for many, many d1 coaches, not all, but many.

BOOM...thanks OR....and congrats on another solo team title;)

No matter what any one says or how clean they try to be, if you have more than 1 team in a world you have a HUGE advantage over everyone else. Not only with recruiting dollars used for multiple teams but here is another angle: 1 team plays opponents in exhibition or non-conference and if the other team plays one of those same teams come tourney time then the owner already has a feel of what works or doesn't work. You could also play exhibition games or non-conference games against your conference opponents in your other conference to see how they play and again what works and what doesn't. I'm not calling anyone cheaters but I could NEVER feel good about winning a championship with more than 1 team in a world, people would always wonder what shortcuts you might have taken...just my 2 cents. Also, there are so many opportunities to play in other worlds both 1 and 2 a day games that there is no reason to have multiple teams in the same world.

P.S. And having a D1 team and a D3 team is just as bad because the D3 team can see recruiting for D1 players so that argument doesn't fly.

Posted by jeff_probst on 8/11/2011 10:00:00 AM (view original):
BOOM...thanks OR....and congrats on another solo team title;)

jeff - u gotta remember, CS has said multiple teams are OK.  For those who have been around a long, long time, one of the best coaches in the 'old' game, had many teams in d1, might even had a team in each of the BCS conferences in a single world - he was a friend of tarek's and a supporter of the game, might have had in the mid 20's total teams at one point, maybe even more - he had so many alias's, I never was sure who he was exactly, but I did have some recruiting run ins with him, he was a very, very good recruiter .... so having 2 teams in one world division has precedent - my calling multiple teams  'implied' collusion is my own term, and one that near everyone in the game is guilty of to some degree, i.e. the implied collusion of me not going after a recruit that my son has, or often not going after a recruit that a conf mate has, etc - my use of the term was to illustrate the need to make more equal high end recruits available, so that so much pressure is not on the recruiting end of the game.

edit ***** oh and jeff - thx for the congrat's - felt like the RNG was on my side all season long - a great feeling

AND...we're back to A- HCA.  Speaking of sending things to CS...

Posted by jeff_probst on 8/11/2011 8:02:00 AM (view original):
Or just get 2-3 teams Gil in the same division of the same world because 1 just isn't enough to work it like you're supposed to.  When is enough enough? Is 5 teams ok? 7? If 2 is fine, then when does the amount of teams in the same division start to become a problem for people? Just let me know what number is okay because I'll start adding teams just to recruit against other owners and make them spend as much money as possible.  That Louisville job looks pretty good, I could make you break the bank almost every year-huh? Funny thing is Gil, you like to make assumptions and accusations, but there's proof of what you do every year.  I think most people would have a problem with coach K coaching both Duke and Arkansas every season no matter the distance. I know this is all just stemming from your embarrassing loss to me in the title game a couple seasons ago.  It must hurt so much to know that it doesn't matter if you ever beat me again...you lost BAD at your best chance to beat your most hated coach in the biggest game that WIS offers.  Just suck it up and go on a bender and get 3-4 more teams in the same division because at some point the numbers have to start to work in your favor-right? Oh yeah I almost forgot, who are you going for in recruiting this season?  I don't want to cross the line so don't tell me their ratings, just give me their names, their potential, their GPA, FT %, and the amount of money you plan on spending for each player.  BTW-you've been doing a better job keeping your accounts separate the last few seasons, so keep it up....it's nice to have someone on the inside;)

theres no assumptions when you sent me a sitemail trying to get me to collude when you first got to cincinnati. its pretty much all the proof i need. of the many requests for collusion i've gotten, yours was easily the most offensive. is that not enough? should i wait for you to send me a 2nd request to collude?

Posted by swiners on 8/11/2011 10:15:00 AM (view original):
No matter what any one says or how clean they try to be, if you have more than 1 team in a world you have a HUGE advantage over everyone else. Not only with recruiting dollars used for multiple teams but here is another angle: 1 team plays opponents in exhibition or non-conference and if the other team plays one of those same teams come tourney time then the owner already has a feel of what works or doesn't work. You could also play exhibition games or non-conference games against your conference opponents in your other conference to see how they play and again what works and what doesn't. I'm not calling anyone cheaters but I could NEVER feel good about winning a championship with more than 1 team in a world, people would always wonder what shortcuts you might have taken...just my 2 cents. Also, there are so many opportunities to play in other worlds both 1 and 2 a day games that there is no reason to have multiple teams in the same world.

this is a valid point except that i have stated in both conferences that i am more than happy to drop a team if anybody in the conference has a problem with it. but seemingly, the only people that care that i have 2 teams are a known cheater and his good friend who seems to have no problem with the fact that his buddy is a cheater - so why do you care what i am doing? if you or anybody else doesn't want to take the chance of playing me twice in a season, with 2 different teams, the answer is amazingly simple - don't schedule a game with me.

Hmmmmm...well if thats true Gil, please post my message on here for all to see. If not, then just head back to the shallow end where I put you after I buried you in the title game. Btw, shouldn't you be focused on recruiting for all 12 of your teams in Tark right now?

I agree with what OR said about the implied collusion stuff but there are instances where having 2 teams in the same division can hurt you. For example I have two teams WVU and North Texas, now I don't see how either team will overlap and I end up having a chance to battle the same team with both schools. But let's say instead of North Texas I took over Central Connecticut St. It's largely irrelevant that realistically I could go into either's territory and snag a recruit thus meaning I could scout less states with each team and still get info for states that are less than 360 miles away because with the ways thing are on the East Coast I pretty much never go over 200 miles for a recruit and there is no state area, maybe except NJ that both schools are 200 miles away from. With WVU I can't even remember the last time I even scouted NY, there's just no point.

Here is how it can hurt me, say with WVU I am battling Rutgers for a PA recruit and Rutgers is on a low rated high potential recruitin NY  that could be a stud with my C. Conn. St. team and I know I'd be able to snatch him away from Rutgers I wouldn't even try simply because I know how bad it looks to be battling the same school with 2 different IDs. So I lose out on a player that I could've gotten and would've been a great player only because I had another team. Who knows if I would ever battle somebody in the BE with my other ID just because I'd always be wary that it may look bad.

I do think some people's concerns are way overstated, jeff_probst and swiners are exaggerating the advantage you have by having 2 teams. There is no huge advantage unless you are actually trying to have a huge advantage. If you are just playing by the rules and treating your teams as 2 completely seperate teams you may give yourself a very small edge over somebody with 1 team but it's certainly nothing big.

As far as you can have a team in another world, I for one hate 1 a day worlds since my first world was a 2 a day and I got used to the fast paced and as you can see I have a team in every 2 a day world, and sometimes you just like certain worlds better. Just because some people are overly paranoid about potential cheating doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to have 2 teams in 1 world.

Uh gill, pretty sure OR had a major problem with it but you are too scared to address him. Just because your conference mates bow down to you it still effects the rest of us. Whenever we play you in the tournament it effects us all. And you say not to schedule you if we have a problem with it but I can't schedule my tournament games.  Oldresorter has forgotten more about this game then all of us know and if he says it is a problem then...it is a problem-end of story. P.S. I never have a problem playing you as evident of our H2H record :)

Posted by swiners on 8/11/2011 10:19:00 AM (view original):
P.S. And having a D1 team and a D3 team is just as bad because the D3 team can see recruiting for D1 players so that argument doesn't fly.

... if you blatantly abuse the situation.

see, its pretty obvious what is going on here. you guys look at everything assuming the worst possible abuse of the situation is taking place. that is probably how at least one of you justifies his own actions - "everybody else COULD be colluding with their local competitors, so i should too, or its a disadvantage". believe it or not, most of us play above board - or are at least not so stupid as to name their 2nd accounts <account1>1 and use them to collude. at least half a dozen of the people i play with most regularly have multiple teams and the threat of them cheating is totally a non-issue to me and just about everyone else around them. JP, your view on the game is skewed by your own actions. your trying to abuse every situation to the fullest is what pushes you to think that others are. 

this d3/d1 example is the best there is, as most coaches would agree there is absolutely no advantage to coaches with that setup. unlike d1/d1 or d2/d2 setups, where there is potential overlap in recruiting or potential to gain information in recruiting that benefits another team unintentionally, like noticing a local battle and then one of those schools reaches for a player in the area of your other school. really d3/d1 is about as clean as it gets. but you guys are still against it. why? the cheater bias skews your perception of reality.

kmason, first off you just admitted that you have a slight advantage, you don't see a problem with that no matter how slight? I don't care how many teams you have honestly but know that if and when you ever win a championship that there will always be an asterisk by it. Why would you want to do anything that other people might see as shady?

gill, why don't you address OR? hmmm.....

gill, are you clueless or just blind? The D3 team can use recruiting money to scout your D1 recruits thus saving your D1 money for those recruits duh! This would go virtually unnoticed by everyone but I'm sure no one does that.