Recruiting
Recruiting is how a program renews itself. Every season your seniors leave, and the room you wrestle with in two years is the one you recruit now. Recruiting runs on the same weekly staff-point budget as practice and meets, so every point spent on a recruit is a point not spent on your room.
Who you can recruit
| Group | Signs |
|---|---|
| High-school seniors | On signing day, at the end of week 12 |
| High-school juniors | Not this season. They become seniors at the rollover, and any work you put in carries over. |
| Junior-college sophomores and juniors | On signing day. They join as sophomores or juniors, not freshmen. |
| Transfers | When week 15 advances. They come from the portal, which opens after week 13. |
Recruits are ranked nationally and by weight. Nobody publishes a recruit’s overall rating, so how good he really is is something you find out with film study.
What a recruit is looking for
Each recruit has one top priority and one or two other things he cares about, chosen from six factors. Your program gets a letter grade on each factor, for him specifically:
| Factor | Graded on |
|---|---|
| Competition | How strong your room is around his weight, plus your RTC |
| Early Opportunity | How he compares with your best wrestler at his weight. An empty weight is an A. |
| Close to Home | Same state is an A, a bordering state a B, anywhere else an F |
| Academics | Your admission standard |
| Winning Program | Your national team ranking |
| Facilities | Your facility |
Culture matters too. A recruit is drawn to programs whose declared culture matches what he wants, and it counts heavily, more than any single factor. He goes by what you declare, not by how your culture is grading.
The top-priority rule. If your grade on a recruit’s top priority is below C−, you can’t put him on your board or spend points on him. He won’t take your call. Film study is still allowed, and transfers are never blocked this way. Every recruit’s top priority is one that at least a few programs can meet.
Interest
Each recruit keeps a list of up to ten schools, each with an interest bar on a scale up to 1,000. Everything you do for him adds to your bar. How much depends on:
- Fit. A program that grades well on what he wants gains more from the same call or visit. The top priority counts double, and a culture match counts most of all.
- His ranking. Top recruits are harder to move. The best in the country gain noticeably less from each action.
- A little luck.
Interest also fades. Every week you do nothing for a recruit, you lose some ground, and if your bar empties you drop off his list. Juniors forget more slowly.
Your board
Your board holds up to 30 targets. Recruiting actions are planned during the week and resolve when it advances. The points leave your budget when you plan the action, and cancelling it before the advance refunds them. If something changes before the advance and an action is no longer allowed, it fails and the points are not refunded.
Recruiting actions
| Action | Staff points | Effect | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call a recruit | 1 | A small bump | Once per recruit per week |
| Weekly call | 1 a week | Starts small and grows every week you keep it on | Stays on until you stop it |
| In-state visit | 2 | A solid bump | One visit per recruit per week |
| Neighbouring-state visit | 3 | Same as above | Same as above |
| Long-distance visit | 4 | Same as above | Same as above |
| Official visit | 2 | A big bump | Once per recruit, ever |
| Extravagant visit | 4 | The biggest bump | Shares the official visit’s one slot |
| Throw shade | 1 | Knocks a rival school’s bar down | Once per recruit per week |
| Offer a scholarship | 0 | Interest every week the offer stands | One offer decision per recruit per week |
Notes on each
- The weekly call is the backbone of a recruiting campaign. Held from week 1 to signing day, it is worth about a full bar on its own. Turning it off resets the build-up.
- Visits are priced by distance. You don’t choose the tier; geography does.
- Official and extravagant visits bring him to campus, and he only comes if you are in his top five. That is checked when you plan it and again when the week advances. He makes one campus visit to your school in his whole recruitment, so choose your moment.
- Scholarship offers cost no points. A standing offer earns interest every week, and a bigger offer earns more. A very small offer doesn’t keep up with the weekly fade. You can take an offer back.
- Throw shade hurts a rival’s standing with the recruit. The rival’s coach finds out who did it.
Scouting: film study
A recruit’s attributes come in four groups: Heart, Motor, Strength and Technique. Each group has its own film study at 1 point. The first study of a group shows its attributes as narrow ranges, and a second shows exact numbers. A complete evaluation of one recruit costs 8 points.
- Film study resolves right away and can’t be undone.
- It works on anyone, including recruits who have committed elsewhere and recruits you can’t otherwise recruit.
- Each group can be studied twice per recruit per season.
- Transfers need no film study: their college records are public, so every attribute is shown exactly.
Commitment
A recruit commits once a program has filled his interest bar and has a scholarship offer out to him. If more than one program qualifies, the one he likes most wins. A commitment holds: a junior who commits is still yours when he becomes a senior. Once he is committed, nobody can recruit him further, other programs’ offers are withdrawn, and only film study is still possible.
Ivies and service academies give no aid, so every recruit on their board already counts as having a full offer.
Signing day
When week 12 advances, every senior and junior-college recruit signs. Each one picks the program he likes most among those that have him on their board. He doesn’t need a full bar to sign, and there is no limit on how many you sign, so a deep board on signing day can bring in more than you planned. After signing day, seniors and junior-college recruits are off the market.
Week 13: cuts and aid
Signing day can leave you over your roster limit or your aid budget. Week 13 is when you fix that. It is the only week you can cut a wrestler, and the last week you can change aid. When it advances, a program still over either limit has wrestlers released for it: the weakest wrestler at its deepest weight goes first. New signees and fifth-year seniors are never released this way.
The transfer portal
At the end of week 13, every returning wrestler decides whether to stay. Most do. The ones who leave enter the portal. A wrestler is more likely to leave if:
- he is a freshman or sophomore rather than an upperclassman;
- your culture is a poor fit for him;
- he is winning but paid little;
- he is stuck behind better, younger wrestlers at his weight;
- you cut his aid; or
- another program has been tampering with him.
You can watch these risks on your roster all season. In weeks 14–15 you recruit from the portal just like any other pool. Transfers sign when week 15 advances, and anyone nobody signs leaves the game.
Tampering
From week 1 to week 12 you can spend 1 point to tamper with a wrestler on another program’s roster. Each time makes him more likely to enter the portal in week 13. His coach is told who did it.
Class rankings
Recruiting classes are ranked every week, counting both commitments and signees. Quality matters far more than quantity: a class is led by its best recruit, the next few add less, and depth adds very little. One elite signee can outrank a big class of average ones.