I've found that, when recruiting with a mid-sized program slowly rising in prestige and facilitiy-quality, that often when I am able to snag my first choice recruits in the pre-season signing period, my recruit rankings are lower than when I dont get my first choice recruits and am forced to scramble to pick up unsigned players in March and April.

I've been thinking about this all day at work...do players who have been signed early sort of let off the gas their senior year, knowing they've already made their decision, whereas unsigned players bust their butts to receive as many scholly options as possible when end-of-season signing arrives?

And maybe I'm just thinking way, way too hard about this, and I haven't necessarily done any record keeping or testing yet, but I wonder if that plays into players who regress after their freshman season: they bust their butt to get to the best school possible, they come in and want to make a great first impression, and then settle in and cool down a bit. I've seen regression even from guys with great work rates. Wish I'd made a note of when they signed.

If I'm just thinking way too hard about this, that's cool too because it fits my narrative and helps with immersion haha

Interesting. My guess is this is thinking too hard about this. I don't think this is something that's coded in the game.

Unless you ran a long-term save tracking this and showing a correlation...

By not signing recruits in the fall, you are missing out on the very best players who (unless they have horrible SAT scores) would have signed in the fall. You also miss out on guys who seem to fit well into your program but choose other schools.

But...there are guys who are pretty darned good who simply don't commit in the fall or winter and therefore are available in the spring and there are fewer schools vying for them since they've already filled all available scholarships. And yes, some of those springtime-available guys are higher ranked than what you (at a middle or lower prestige program) MAY have been able to lasso in the fall/winter. In fact there are occasional nuggets (skill-wise) who had bad GPA's that made other schools wary of signing them in the fall/winter, but who may have squeaked by to qualify for your school's minimum SAT score. Also you MAY be able to sign guys who are outside the region in the spring when in the fall/winter they were unwilling to look that far from home at your program.

I think that's what you're noticing when you have been able to pick up some of those pretty good guys in the spring when not many other schools are going after them and these recruits are getting a little desperate to sign with SOMEone.

At a low rated or even mid-major school if I can;t get the guys I want in the fall I always save some $ for March and April. I've done pretty weel that way.