I am pretty new to this game and am really enjoying discovering its depths. The one area I have been frustrated by is the unpredictability of the quality of recruits. Recruiting is a key aspect of a game like this, and I definitely appreciate that it is an inexact science and that scouts assigning ratings to players on the roster are also imperfect.
But, the unpredictability of how a recruit will translate to a player can be frustrating. I started playing as a small school, was happy to bag one of the top ranked prospects who showed interest only to find that he had worse ability and ratings than anyone else on my roster.
My longest game has been with Maryland, and after having top 5 recruiting classes for 4 seasons, I've noticed that about half of A overall recruits in the top 20 in their position are fantastic, while the other half aren't even decent backups. I've recruited 3 highly ranked power forwards (2 As and a B) in consecutive years and have a walk-on starting. And it's not as if the scouting on my team is inaccurate. In the games these guys are awful. Sometimes they have big potential ratings, but I've never seen a player improve by more than .5 stars in a season so the 1/5 guy is the same as the 1/2.5 guy. I get that prospects are often busts but given the depth of the recruiting detail it can be frustrating. I want to try to play as a low level school, but I am concerned that recruiting is just a roll of the dice because it is impossible to distinguish actual quality. Sorry for the rant. Are there certain qualities during recruiting that predict whether a recruit will be good once they get on campus? I think camp performance is a good predictor. I thought athleticism would be one, but many many top 10 overall recruits have F or D for athleticism. Thank you for any advice. I really do like this game. It is so addictive.