Choosing a Team
Every world holds the same 77 Division I programs, split across seven conferences: the EIWA, Big Ten, MAC, Big 12, Pac-12, SoCon and ACC. Each program fields a lineup at ten weights, from 125 to 285. You coach one program per world. Which one you pick decides how fast your room can develop, which recruits will listen to you, and how far your scholarship money goes.
Reading the job board
The job board lists every program in a world, one conference at a time. Each card shows the program’s stars, its facility, its regional training centre, its scholarship budget, its admission standard and its current culture grades.
Stars and staff points
A program’s stars reflect its standing. They set how many staff points you get each week, and staff points pay for everything your staff does: meets, recruiting and training. Points you don’t spend are lost when the week advances.
| Stars | Staff points a week |
|---|---|
| ★★★★★ | 32 |
| ★★★★ | 24 |
| ★★★ | 21 |
| ★★ | 18 |
| ★ | 12 |
Higher-rated programs also start with stronger rosters and a firmer culture.
RTC: the regional training centre
A regional training centre (RTC) is an Olympic-style club linked to a program. A well-funded one can pay post-collegiate and international athletes to train in your room. The card rates it on three pips: No RTC, Local club, Regional RTC or National RTC.
- Technique training. Your wrestlers learn technique, quickness and mat sense faster in practice with better partners in the room. The stronger the RTC, the bigger the edge. It only affects practice, not matches.
- Recruiting. A strong RTC raises your Competition grade with recruits who want a tough room.
- Roster size. A stronger RTC supports a slightly bigger room.
Facility
Facilities run from a corner of a shared gym up to a dedicated wrestling complex.
- Strength and conditioning. A cramped room holds back gains in the four strength attributes and endurance, and a dedicated complex speeds them up.
- Recruiting. The facility sets your Facilities grade directly, from A for a complex down to D for a shared gym.
- Roster size. Better facilities support a bigger room.
Admission standard
Every school admits students its own way: Open admissions, Selective, Highly selective or Service academy. This sets your Academics grade with recruits (highly selective is an A, then service academy, selective, and open). It also shapes roster size: open-admission schools carry the most wrestlers and service academies the fewest.
Scholarships and fractional aid
The scholarship figure on each card is the program’s aid budget, counted in full-ride equivalents. You don’t have to give anyone a full ride. Aid can be split, so a wrestler might be on 0.5 of a scholarship and a teammate on 0.25. Recruiting offers go up in tenths of a ride.
| Budget | What it means |
|---|---|
| 0 | No athletic aid (Ivies and service academies; see below) |
| 9.9 | Equivalency limit. The old NCAA cap, which many programs still work within |
| 14 or 20 | Partially funded |
| 30 | Fully funded: a full ride for every man on a 30-man roster |
A program on 9.9 has about four full rides and a long tail of partial ones, and it has to make every tenth count. A fully funded program can offer full rides almost everywhere. Aid matters beyond recruiting: a wrestler who wins a lot but is paid little is more likely to enter the transfer portal. You can change aid on your roster from week 1 through week 13.
Max roster size
The NCAA limit is 30 wrestlers, but most programs carry fewer. A program’s target roster size, between 20 and 30, depends on its facility, its RTC, its admission standard and how much aid it can offer. A program on the 9.9 limit usually recruits toward about 20 men, and a fully funded one toward 30. In week 13, a program over its roster or aid limit has to make cuts. See cuts.
The Ivy League
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn and Princeton wrestle in the EIWA. They are highly selective and give no athletic scholarships. In the game that means:
- Putting a recruit on your board automatically counts as a full offer. There are no scholarship controls to manage.
- Walk-ons cost nothing, so these programs fill a full 30-man room.
- They are never forced to cut for aid. Nobody on the roster can feel underpaid, which removes one common reason wrestlers transfer.
- They earn an A in Academics, which some recruits care about more than anything.
Service academies
Air Force, Army West Point and Navy recruit by appointment. Like the Ivies, they give no athletic aid, every board offer counts as a full offer, and they are never forced to cut for aid. Their Academics grade is a B, and the appointment process keeps their rooms smaller than an open-admission school’s.
Current culture
The card also shows how the program has graded on its three culture axes. You choose your own culture in week 1, so this tells you where the room is starting from, not where it has to stay. See Culture.
After you apply
- Coaching jobs are applied for, not claimed. You can apply in a world where you don’t yet coach a program. You hold one application per world, and applying elsewhere replaces it. You can withdraw it at any time.
- An administrator decides. Your application stays pending until it is approved or denied. If you opted in to emails, you get one when you apply and another when you are hired.
- Any program can be applied for, coached or not. If a program with a coach is given to you, the previous coach is let go.
- You start in the current week of the world’s current season, even if the application was filed before the season rolled over.
- Retiring is the only way to leave a program. Use the button on your world’s card. You stay in the world, the program goes back to the AI, and you can apply again.
You can join as many worlds as you like, and coach one program in each.