In one of my worlds I have 3 recruits that are down to my team and an AI team. Here's the issue. I hit each of these players with aggressive approach from the start. Immediately they all went down to a choice between my team and an AI. But I'm now up to as many as 20 campus visits plus promised playing time and yet none of these three have flipped. The "mailbag" says they all love the school, can't wait to play etc. Is it possible they just can't be signed? How is it possible that an AI can outperform a human that completely?

What division are you and what division are the AI?

Should have just checked. I see you're D1A.

My only guess is maybe it has to do with proximity? How close are the players to the schools you're against? Does seem odd, though.

Distance to SimAI has no factor in my experience

Things that matter -
1) Your level (Elite>Power 5>BEAST>Others)
2) Opponents level (See hierarchy above)
3) Number of Sim AI on recruit (3 easier to crack than 1 - Most important one is top one listed)

I had Arkansas St a few seasons back - I sent FR Start - 45 or 50% PT and 35 CVs and did not get the player vs single Power 5 SimAI - Put in a ticket telling WIS how ridiculous that was and they said my effort was close. I have also not defeated a last SimAI before with 23-30 CVs before and gotten recruit on Day 2 of signings but that's rolling dice.

I'm in Big East. Interesting that NC State is the AI on two of them, might be a hint there, and Oregon State is on the other. The three players range from 110 to 337 miles from my campus. It just seems odd to me that GD wants to get more humans but this is a discouraging process. Doesn't enthuse me one bit.

If it is the South Florida or Rutgers team, then it doesn't help you are in your first season there. That has a lot to play in with it as well. You have to establish yourself with a team and the SIMAI teams will fall off a lot easier once you do. Not having playoff money also hurts. Maybe try and get some undecided LBs and/or RBs to help out with a lot of growth. You can get them cheap and still have some extra money to knock off sims on other players.

I found what may be the deciding clue. NC State has 31 scholarships to offer and Oregon State has 19. I suspect it makes the AI much more 'aggressive' or 'competitive', whatever the adjective might be. I'm up to 24 campus visits and none of the three turned. And for sure, me being a first year coach has to have an impact. I'm not worried about filling my class. I went after a top QB and RB to set a base. If I can get 2 or 3 OL next cycle I'll have a good start on the offense. I was just hoping to get a couple of those OL this cycle.

lmao I hadn't looked at developer chat summaries before. There are discussions back in 2014 of how hard it is to recruit against AI. Developers were promising back then that they would make it easier to recruit against AI. They obviously haven't done much, if anything. It seems that they are refusing to butter the bread for their human players. Maybe they want all AI worlds so there would be no complaining :)

Micky - You will find the baseline 3 SimAI recruit will take 12-16 CVs to knock off - There are certainly outliers that you have definitely run into this season - There are slight adjustments for your programs success but I don't think it is very material (Others will argue strongly against this statement)

"The "mailbag" says they all love the school, can't wait to play etc."
As long as the recruit is considering you, you might hear that. So might any other school the recruit is considering.

Opinion: The strength of the sim program doesn't matter, only the conference they are in. The strength of your program matters greatly. Whether you are in your first season there, or the tenth, or the 50th, doesn't matter, though obviously in the first season you have a financial disadvantage being without rollover or playoff cash. ... "I hit each of these players with aggressive approach from the start." ... An aggressive approach consistently carried through will get the player green to you in 2-3 recruiting cycles, assuming the quality of the recruit is a reasonable match your program's prestige (which does matter considerably). Lesser quality recruits will be gotten even more easily. If you're shooting a little too high the recruit may require more convincing, and that may be your problem. Proximity to your program matters only for the cost of recruiting efforts. Proximity of the recruit to the sim doesn't matter.

Last comment, lol. All this input has helped tremendously. Thanks to all. Strangely, I only had enough money left for phone calls but this morning the 3 players I've been talking about all committed. Go figure. The downside of this process is that my top target didn't commit and is headed to another school. But a number of you have given me the clue as to why I lost him. I had invested 76k in his recruitment, lol, and still lost him, but the reason is that the other school has a tremendous record and status, so he probably was able to spend much less and I would have had to spend much more. Doesn't bother me at all given the lessons of learned from this thread. Thanks again to all of you for the great feeback!