“I would like to see one pool of players from D1A down to D3.” That is functionally what we have now. Need proof? As someone noted above, in “DI-AA recruiting … you have to compete against DI[A] teams.” Top D2 teams have to compete against D1AA schools and top D3 schools have to compete against D2 schools. Every division overlaps with the division above and below it. Prestige is used to give soft tiers to the column of recruits – the higher your division and the higher your prestige within your division, the better recruits you may land, with less effort. In real life, the most prestigious schools have the best chance of landing the best recruits overall, and that effect is mimicked faithfully by prestige in GD.
As someone wished for, “More prestige could be given to the successful schools.” That is already how it works, based on wins, weighted toward the most recent seasons. More success = more prestige.
All of this is as it should be, and gives meaning [1] to the different divisions and [2] to success over seasons. This much is a smoothly operating system.
So then, why doesn’t it seem that way sometimes? The culprit is vision. Can anyone see any positive quality that vision adds to recruiting as I described it above? Sorry, that is a trick question – vision adds nothing constructive. It is redundant at best and an artificial, unrealistic barrier at worst. Nothing in the real world creates an impermeable barrier that absolutely prevents a school from recruiting a player that is available to a slightly more successful school in the same division. Likewise, there is no such absolute barrier that could kick in with one too many losses and prevent a school from recruiting a player it would have been able to recruit before or during the season. Inventing such an imaginary barrier is damaging – no, poisonous – to game play, the worst kind of rich-get-richer scheme, a serious anti-competitive factor at levels where the effect is strongest. No wonder many highly successful coaches want it retained – it makes their job recruiting much easier.