JeffHCross
06-09-2007, 01:39 PM
http://www.ncaastrategies.com/images/ncaafootball08/ign.gif NCAA 08 Recruiting Trip
EA introduces the deepest recruiting system to date. It's time to sell your school.
by Jonathan Miller (http://sports.ign.com/email.html)
<strong>June 8, 2007</strong> - If you're the University of Southern California, what is basically a minor league NFL team, recruiting is easy. Just hand a high school All American a pen and tell him where to sign.
But if your TV ratings are lower than the NHL playoffs, if your weight room is a collection of second-hand ThighMasters and your last student to make the NFL was a male cheerleader, then you have a tough road ahead. To land stud recruits, you have to sell your school.
In real life, daring athletic directors could go all Colorado, hire a few frisky sorority sisters to do their duty for the school and throw a little beer-bong recruiting party to sway some blue chippers. But in the ever-so-strict realm of videogame football, you'll have to abide by NCAA regulations and play it straight. Ironic, isn't it? At least in NCAA 08, slated for release in July, you can play it straight, um, deeper than ever before.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041813233-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611995.html)
The recruiting game has been almost completely overhauled from NCAA 07 and the result is an immersive process in which you sell your school's best attributes to potential recruits. But it's a two-way street, and you'll have to feel out your candidates to find out what they want out of their college football experience, be it eight games on ESPN, promiscuous cheerleaders or a well-stocked library (you nerd).
Here's how it breaks down. When starting your Dynasty, the first thing you do is target new prospects. Because there are thousands of fictional players, EA has created a search tool to help you find those that meet your needs. You want a clutch kicker, power back, or scrambling QB? Do you only look for four-star recruits or better? Do you want to stay within the pipeline or take the search international? 4.5 40 times only? Now you can search, sort and hopefully sign these recruits.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041817936-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611999.html)
Once you have a group of targeted players, they are added to your recruiting board and this is where the fun begins. In the past, you would simply make a few calls and send the coaching staff to sway a recruit. To ink anybody was basically a roll of the dice. In NCAA 08, it all starts with your school. A university is more than just a 1-6 prestige rating. A recruit has to consider academics (ha!), coaching philosophies, playing time and proximity to Mom. So EA has created 14 different variables that define a school and ranked everybody. USC is among the elite in TV exposure, but West Coast recruits may want to consider Cal if they are interested in an elite academic program. We're not saying USC students are dumb -- OK, we are.
But that's the entire point. Not only are these rankings going to stir up a little friendly discussion in the community (there are going to be a lot of disappointed Louisiana-Monroe fans... what else is new) but they are going to be the basis behind the entire recruiting system.
So you pick up the phone and call a recruit. At first, the only thing you know about John Q. Recruit is how highly touted he is -- one star through five. So it's time to start probing. As you ask questions, time will tick off the 10 total hours you have to harass kids that day. The more you talk, the more you find out about the player. But the more you talk, the more the kid gets angry that you won't shut up and let him go play with his friends. There's a fine line to walk here. Then again, you can always call him the next day.
For instance, Cal needs a kicker. Cal is an elite academic school with an excellent coach and an incoming kicker would start immediately. I want to sell those attributes. So I select academic prestige and hit "Find Pitch." Basically it means we'll find out if the kid is buying what I'm selling. Unfortunately for my kicker, Dan Schmidt, he couldn't care less about academics. Time to move on. Next I select early playing time. Time ticks off the clock as I explain to Schmidt his cozy position on next year's depth chart, and he gets excited and says that playing time is most important to him. A padlock appears to indicate that his feelings toward playing time are locked in -- you can't sway him in either direction. The kid wants to play and he wants to play now.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041818842-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4612001.html)
You can make these pitches for academic prestige, campus lifestyle, coach experience, coach prestige, conference prestige, championship contender, athletic facilities, fan base, early playing time, pro factory, proximity to home, program stability, program tradition and television exposure. And it you're feeling lucky, you can hard sell some of these attributes, taking up valuable time on the clock, but this is a last-ditch effort to land a recruit that is about to sign elsewhere. If you know a kid wants to go to your school, you can be a little easier with him.
About Schmidt. I know he wants to play immediately, so now I have the option to make him some promises. So I tell him that he's going to get significant playing time his first year. No, I <i>promise</i> him he's going to play. The little happy face icon that indicates his feelings toward me is now all smiles.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041816983-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611997.html)
You can repeat this process for any recruit throughout the season and during the signing period. Or, if in the immortal words of Kush you "just wanna play football," you can simulate through it. But let's say kicker Schmidt signs with Cal, accepts a scholarship and arrives in Berkeley the next fall ready to play. And let's say a walk-on kicker comes along that is better than Schmidt and earns the starting job. Well, you made a promise to Schmidt and if you break it, he's going to transfer and your coaching integrity is going to take a hit. Insert Gary Barnett joke here.
As you can imagine, this give-and-take between coaches and recruits is a deep new direction for Dynasty mode, one that EA hopes will appeal to hard-core football purists. Now if only the NCAA would approve that damn cheerleader tryout mini-game.
EA introduces the deepest recruiting system to date. It's time to sell your school.
by Jonathan Miller (http://sports.ign.com/email.html)
<strong>June 8, 2007</strong> - If you're the University of Southern California, what is basically a minor league NFL team, recruiting is easy. Just hand a high school All American a pen and tell him where to sign.
But if your TV ratings are lower than the NHL playoffs, if your weight room is a collection of second-hand ThighMasters and your last student to make the NFL was a male cheerleader, then you have a tough road ahead. To land stud recruits, you have to sell your school.
In real life, daring athletic directors could go all Colorado, hire a few frisky sorority sisters to do their duty for the school and throw a little beer-bong recruiting party to sway some blue chippers. But in the ever-so-strict realm of videogame football, you'll have to abide by NCAA regulations and play it straight. Ironic, isn't it? At least in NCAA 08, slated for release in July, you can play it straight, um, deeper than ever before.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041813233-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611995.html)
The recruiting game has been almost completely overhauled from NCAA 07 and the result is an immersive process in which you sell your school's best attributes to potential recruits. But it's a two-way street, and you'll have to feel out your candidates to find out what they want out of their college football experience, be it eight games on ESPN, promiscuous cheerleaders or a well-stocked library (you nerd).
Here's how it breaks down. When starting your Dynasty, the first thing you do is target new prospects. Because there are thousands of fictional players, EA has created a search tool to help you find those that meet your needs. You want a clutch kicker, power back, or scrambling QB? Do you only look for four-star recruits or better? Do you want to stay within the pipeline or take the search international? 4.5 40 times only? Now you can search, sort and hopefully sign these recruits.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041817936-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611999.html)
Once you have a group of targeted players, they are added to your recruiting board and this is where the fun begins. In the past, you would simply make a few calls and send the coaching staff to sway a recruit. To ink anybody was basically a roll of the dice. In NCAA 08, it all starts with your school. A university is more than just a 1-6 prestige rating. A recruit has to consider academics (ha!), coaching philosophies, playing time and proximity to Mom. So EA has created 14 different variables that define a school and ranked everybody. USC is among the elite in TV exposure, but West Coast recruits may want to consider Cal if they are interested in an elite academic program. We're not saying USC students are dumb -- OK, we are.
But that's the entire point. Not only are these rankings going to stir up a little friendly discussion in the community (there are going to be a lot of disappointed Louisiana-Monroe fans... what else is new) but they are going to be the basis behind the entire recruiting system.
So you pick up the phone and call a recruit. At first, the only thing you know about John Q. Recruit is how highly touted he is -- one star through five. So it's time to start probing. As you ask questions, time will tick off the 10 total hours you have to harass kids that day. The more you talk, the more you find out about the player. But the more you talk, the more the kid gets angry that you won't shut up and let him go play with his friends. There's a fine line to walk here. Then again, you can always call him the next day.
For instance, Cal needs a kicker. Cal is an elite academic school with an excellent coach and an incoming kicker would start immediately. I want to sell those attributes. So I select academic prestige and hit "Find Pitch." Basically it means we'll find out if the kid is buying what I'm selling. Unfortunately for my kicker, Dan Schmidt, he couldn't care less about academics. Time to move on. Next I select early playing time. Time ticks off the clock as I explain to Schmidt his cozy position on next year's depth chart, and he gets excited and says that playing time is most important to him. A padlock appears to indicate that his feelings toward playing time are locked in -- you can't sway him in either direction. The kid wants to play and he wants to play now.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041818842-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4612001.html)
You can make these pitches for academic prestige, campus lifestyle, coach experience, coach prestige, conference prestige, championship contender, athletic facilities, fan base, early playing time, pro factory, proximity to home, program stability, program tradition and television exposure. And it you're feeling lucky, you can hard sell some of these attributes, taking up valuable time on the clock, but this is a last-ditch effort to land a recruit that is about to sign elsewhere. If you know a kid wants to go to your school, you can be a little easier with him.
About Schmidt. I know he wants to play immediately, so now I have the option to make him some promises. So I tell him that he's going to get significant playing time his first year. No, I <i>promise</i> him he's going to play. The little happy face icon that indicates his feelings toward me is now all smiles.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/795/795369/ncaa-football-08-20070608041816983-000.jpg (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/890/890431/img_4611997.html)
You can repeat this process for any recruit throughout the season and during the signing period. Or, if in the immortal words of Kush you "just wanna play football," you can simulate through it. But let's say kicker Schmidt signs with Cal, accepts a scholarship and arrives in Berkeley the next fall ready to play. And let's say a walk-on kicker comes along that is better than Schmidt and earns the starting job. Well, you made a promise to Schmidt and if you break it, he's going to transfer and your coaching integrity is going to take a hit. Insert Gary Barnett joke here.
As you can imagine, this give-and-take between coaches and recruits is a deep new direction for Dynasty mode, one that EA hopes will appeal to hard-core football purists. Now if only the NCAA would approve that damn cheerleader tryout mini-game.