Finding players[]
There are two ways to find prospects: Using the "leagues" toolbar and Traveling on the Map. To access the recruiting section from the toolbar go to Leagues--> ECAA (college)-->recruiting. (link here: http://pigskinempire.com/recruiting.aspx ). This will give you a list of all available players by position. To actual scout and recruit these players use the travel function on the homepage to search for specific positions. when traveling on the map you can search for recruits by position, distance, star rating, interest level, and more.The class rankings and top 100 will come out later in the year. .
Scouting High School All-Star games
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They are at the beginning of the season before the regular season college/pro games. You'll want to attend the games in order to scout HS recruits. You'll be able to scout several dozen kids in one place without having to search the country for them. It's a great time saver. There are 13 all-star games around the country. You can see where they are played from the game box-score in the all-star schedule. (click on the leagues toolbar on the homepage, go to college -> recruiting -> all-star games -> box score)
Evaluating Recruits[]
In order to evalutate recruits, you need to travel to their home town on the map. To do so, go to your homepage and look on the right hand side of your screen where you will see the words "Core Actions". Click on the plane. Then, you can click on the image of the small airplane above the "Recruit Search" section to travel around the country. Once you are at your desired location you can do a radius search of up to 500 miles to find recruits by position, rating, and class. After clicking the "find" button, the right hand side of your screen will show all the recruits as well as the distance they are from your present location. Alternatively, the map will have numbers corresponding to each location. You can either click on the number or the city location to travel to that city and evaluate. Click on a recruit's name to go to their player page. Click the "scout" button and you will be able to evaluate the player. Then you can go over to his "info" page. On this page you will be given info such as height, weight, 40 time, and GPA as . You can offer players a scholarship or make phone calls to them using the "Options" page.
Campus Visits[]
When you call or visit a recruit from the "Options" page, you may have the ability to offer them to visit your campus. A recruit can only visit 5 different campuses in one season and usually he will accept the first 5 offered (unless he has high interest in other schools that haven't talked with him yet). Once a player has accepted your visit, you should go to the calendar and find the week that he is visiting. Here you can select which player of yours you want to show the prospect around the campus and how much money you want to spend on the campus visits for that week.
* National Signing Day
A Quick Quote From ESPNDoe:[]
...you go around the map using the binoculars to search for recruits... you click on a recruit's town/city to get a list of all the recruits there and then click on a recruit's name to go to his page and then click on options to go to a page where you can scout him, visit him, offer a schollie and depending if it's available offer a visit or an attendence to a game...
..also you can utilize this tool:
http://beta.pigskinempire.com/recruiting.aspx
and this one to see when recruiting starts and to see your visits and budget for them: http://beta.pigskinempire.com/calendar.aspx
Basic Recruiting Tips[]
- It is best to avoid over-recruiting positions. For example, signing more than two recruits at one position in a season significantly increases the chances that at least one will de-commit. You will have no control over who de-commits. So don't over recruit!
- Having more recruits commit then you have scholarships available should also be avoided. Not only will you not be able to add them all to the team, some will also de-commit. You could lose some of your top recruits by making this mistake!
- Recruiting changes from season-to-season, but generally how well you recruit has to do with:
- 1. How successful your team/coach is. The more winning seasons you have, the easy it will be to land top recruits.
- 2. How well you have recruited in the area in the past. It is possible to setup pipeline areas by recruiting in an area consistently and successfully.
- Not all 5 star recruits are good. Also, not all 2 star recruits are bums. Make sure you scout recruits multiple times to determine how good the player is.
- Generally, a HS recruit who rates below a 60 eval score should just be ignored. Many times walk-ons will be at least as good as a below 60 eval player, so just use your hours finding +60 players (minimum).
- Recruits who have a G.P.A. below a 2.0 will not qualify to play college football, so do not recruit them. These players will go to a JUCO school to get their grades up. Even if you get a sub 2.0 G.P.A. player to sign with your team, he will not make your roster. Eventually, these players will reappear after a couple of seasons in the JUCO level and you may then recruit them and sign them to your team.
- Recruits with a G.P.A. above a 2.0 but below a 2.5 may also not qualify academically to play football their first year. These players will have a hidden test score that will determine if they qualify academically. If they do not qualify these players WILL remain on your team, but they will not be able to play in a game. These players will also not be able to redshirt during their first year.