This massive guide to Dynasty Mode in NCAA Football 06 should give you plenty of guidance to play our favorite mode! Make full use of the table of contents and the “scroll to top” button at the bottom right of your screen.

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Picking a Team

Team Info

Dynasty Mode can make any game infinitely replayable, and this is no exception for NCAA Football 06. With close to 200 teams to choose from and 50+ seasons for each dynasty, you can play NCAA 06 forever. Picking a team is really fun but important decision. Below is are tables showing basic info for 1A and 1AA teams. Use the sort and filter options to help narrow down what you are looking for. Please note that this info may be slightly different on your end depending on which roster files you are using.

1A Teams

1AA Teams

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Suggestions

Below are some ideas that I’ve used over the years that have provided an immense amount of fun and value. Please note that you are not restricted by the teams I list below. I am pretty knowledgeable on college football history, but I may miss one or two. All of my suggestions are based off the default 2005 season and the history up unti then.

Established Powerhouse

Most gamers follow this path when they play Dynasty Mode for the first time. This could be a favorite team or maybe they just want to know what it feels like to dominate right out of the gate. Please note that sometimes this type of dynasty may not last as long due to winning quickly on a high level, you may get bored sooner or later. Since I am a huge Tennessee fan, I use to run plenty of Tennessee dynasties back in the day. In NCAA 06, they are a top 5 school with tons of talent. Fun times for sure.

Teams: Florida, Florida State, LSU, Miami (FL), Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, USC

Emerging Powerhouse

These teams are just on the verge of winning national titles, but have never gotten over the hump, at least not within the last decade or so. These teams are very talented in 06 but just need the right coach to put them over the top. I once ran a Cal dynasty that was fun as they have great talent but was never considered a real National Title contender…until I got there.

Teams: Arizona State, Auburn, Cal, Georgia, Iowa, Louisville, Purdue, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech

Revive a Former Powerhouse

This type of storyline is always fun as you try to take a once-proud program and turn them around. This dynasty will probably take longer due to the lack of talent and the toughness of your schedule. I always enjoy this dynasty because of how realistic it is. Just like in real life, all it takes is a great coach to turn around a sliding powerhouse, just like Nick Saban has done at Alabama.

Washington is the best example of this as they were dominate in the 90s but really fell off in the mid 2000s and are ranked #86. My Washington dynasty was a ton of fun as there is talent to work with but the rebuild makes sense as we are seeing this now with Chris Petersen at UW. They also have a big stadium that is fun to play in.

Teams: Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt, UCLA, Washington

Power 5 Bottom Feeder

I must admit, this might be my favorite dynasty. It takes awhile to build your teams up do their lack of talent and tough schedule. However, the rewards are worth it. This type of dynasty makes you feel like you really accomplished something. So much fun!

Teams: Baylor, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Those of you who have followed me the last few years know how many times I have mentioned my fabled Duke Dynasty. I actually had two dynasties. The first one was quite magical as I took the Blue Devils to multiple national championships on academic restrictions. My other Duke dynasty only lasted one season…where I won the national title. I still don’t know how I done that with that porous of a team on Heisman difficulty. Below are some videos related to this type of rebuild and some scouting reports on a few of these teams.

Non-Power 5 Invite

This is probably the most popular dynasty idea. You take in school from a non-Power 5 conference (including the Big East), build them up, get invited to a Power 5 conference, and become a national powerhouse. What makes this dynasty special is the longevity as it will take you several seasons to accomplish the big goals. My UCF dynasty on my YouTube channel is the perfect example of this. It’s always fun doing a complete rebuild, getting invited to a bigger conference, and becoming a household name. It never gets old.

Teams: Any non-Power 5 school

Nerds

This is a unique challenge as most academic-oriented schools are not very good at football. Add is any academic house rules you want to apply (only recruiting B or better awareness prospects for example) and you have yourself quite the challenge. I’ve talked about my Duke dynasties as I too gave myself the academic restriction by only recruiting players who are smart. Always a challenge.

Teams: any school with a 5 or 6 star Academic prestige rating.

Independents and Military

The Independent route is fun as you have full control over your schedule, allowing you to make it as hard or as difficult as you like. Most military schools fall under this umbrella other than Air Force, they are in the Mountain West Conference. I can honestly say I’ve not done this dynasty for a certain length of time and stayed there. It would be fun nonetheless.

Teams: Air Force, Army, Navy, Notre Dame, Temple

1-AA to 1-A Rebuild

I guess some would call this the ultimate challenge. You take any 1-AA school and move them up to 1-A by replacing them with a current 1-A school. This dynasty probably has the longest shelf life as you starting roster will be terrible. However, just like any other challenge, the rewards are greater on the other side. My Yale dynasty is all you need to see to get an idea of how challenging this is. Add in my academic restriction and you have one heck of a challenge. I am having a blast with it though.

Teams: Any 1-AA school

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Dynasty Generator

If you are still having trouble picking a team, I suggest using my Dynasty Generator. These options are currently designed for NCAA Football 06, but you can use it for other games too. Refresh the page if a wheel crashes or doesn’t work for some reason.

1. Pick my FBS or FCS team

1A Teams

1AA Teams

2. Pick my offense

3. Pick my defense

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Preseason

Walkthrough

This video gives a walktrhough of the dynasty process through preseason recruiting. I cover redshirting, depth charts, pipeline states, etc. I suggest you watch this first before moving on in this guide.

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Coach Options

The first thing I always do after selecting a team is to make sure my coach settings are where they need to be. You do this at the Coach Options screen. From the main menu, go to Coach Options > Strategy. This is what you will see:

First things first, changing your philosophy is extremely important since this tells the game what your overall personnel will look like. Regardless of which offense you pick, each one will require you to have a minimum the following:

• 3 QB
• 3 HB
• 3 T
• 3 G
• 2 C

What differs between Balanced, Flexbone, West Coast, Option Run, and Spread are the WRs, TEs, and FBs. I could be off on one or two of these, but here is what each one needs:

• Balanced/West Coast: 2 FB, 5 WR, 2 TE
• Flexbone: 2 FB, 4 WR, 2 TE (4 HB)
• Option Run: 2 FB, 4 WR, 3 TE
• Spread: 1 FB, 6 WR, 2 TE

The defensive side of things is much simpler to memorize. If you know what defense you will be using, then pick it, otherwise, know that you just need to double the amount of your base defense to get the minimum requirement. For instance in 4-3, you need a minimum of 4 DE, 4 DT, 4 OLB, 3 MLB, 4 CB, 2 FS, and 2 SS. The coaching strategies below the base offense and defensive setting can be left alone since that is only if you sim your games, and since we all know 06 is so fun to play, why would you sim your games anyway?

The main point is that you MUST meet the minimum requirement for each position, otherwise the CPU will force walk-ons onto your team at the end of the season in which you cannot cut them so prepare accordingly. Now once you go into the In-Season Recruiting menu, you can see your Team Overview by holding down O/B to get an instead of what you need, more so than want. I cover more scheme & position specific recruiting strategies later on in this guide.

While you are on your Coach Options screen, now is a good time to turn off CPU Assistance. You need to be in full control of recruiting so you need to turn these settings off. To turn these settings off, go to Coach Options > Strategy > and L2/R2 CPU Assistance like show above. Go ahead and turn Discipline Assistance off as well. The last thing you want is for the CPU to decide how to handle your troubled players. This is what that screen looks like.

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Schedules

Your schedule will vary depending on which team you select. Conference-based teams get to change up their non-conference opponents. Independents can schedule whoever they want. The biggest thing to keep in mind here is to have enough home game on the backend of the schedule for recruiting purposes. Here is a video talking about ways to find more opponent options for your schedule.

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Preseason Recruiting

You only get 12 slots/scholarships to use in In-Season recruiting so choose wisely. I say this because when you pick your 12 prospects, you are only given a small amount of info for each prospect. Regardless of position, you only get to see their 40-Time, Bench Press, Squat, and Field Awareness. Now if I was basing my offense around throwing the ball 50 times a game, I would never recruit a QB during the season.

Why? Because as of now, I have no clue what Chris Cobb’s Accuracy and Throw Power are. You will once you start the season but when you pick your initial 12, you won’t. Here is a basic breakdown of how I recruit each position:

• QB – only if my QB will run a ton
• HB – as long as they are not catching the ball a ton in my offense
• FB – see HB
• WR – only if I am a run-heavy team and I need them more for size and strength instead of catching it all the time
• TE – see WR
• OL – you have all the info you need here, go after them
• All Defensive Players – you have all the info you need here, go after them

So basically, if you are pass happy team, be careful if you decide to recruit QB, HB, WR, and TE since you don’t know what their most important attributes will be. It kills me when I recruit a QB and then find out is Accuracy is terrible. I could have just gave that coveted spot to another player in which i new is most important attributes. Now I don’t know how accurate this is but Evil Dave described what each of these things convert with regards to ratings so refer back to his stuff to see that. Obviously 40-time is speed, bench press is strength, and squat is for several things. These numbers are so important because height and weight matter in this game compared some other games I won’t mention here, you know which ones they are. Yes, that means you can recruit behemoths on the line and everywhere else and it effects the game.

I once created a DE that had 99 on everything but was 5’5 150. Guess what? He couldn’t do much of anything since he was so small. So make sure you take height and weight into account and not just the 40, bench, and squat. Finally, be realistic when picking stars. If your school is in a small conference, don’t bother with recruiting 5 star kids, or 4 stars for that matter. I won’t give you any hard rules on this, but just use common sense and don’t get upset when a 5 star prospect doesn’t want to come to your MAC school. What do you expect?

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Pipeline States

As I mentioned in the video, pipeline states are very important as establishing these makes recruiting easier and more affordable. The biggest tip I can give is until your are an established powerhouse (and if you want more of a challenge), stick to states closest to you. The close the state, the cheaper it is to recruit, simple. Once you become a national power, then you can recruit all over the country as by then, you will be winning enough to spend more points on recruiting, especially going after big time talent. There are several states that produce more talent than others. If your school is in one of these states or is close to one, I highly suggest making them as pipeline states. Here are some states that are prone to have a ton of prospects to choose from.

States: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas

The map below shows which states are easier to recruit based on how good or bad adjacent states are in terms of producing talent. Basically, any state in green produces more than enough talent to where you do not have to recruit nation-wide all the time but can recruit closer to home. States in yellow simply do not produce as much talent on year-to-year basis. States in red are the same as the yellow states in terms of not producing much talent, BUT these states are surrounded by only low-recruit-producing yellow states.

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In-Season

Walkthrough

This video gives a walkthrough of how I handle the in-season process, especially recruiting. I cover a lot here so I suggest watching it before moving on. Some of what I say in this video carries over into the rest of this section.

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In-Season Recruiting

Point Distribution

During the season, you get 100 percentage points to spread throughout any of your 12 chosen prospects. There are two schools of thought when spreading your points out: putting points on most players or just focusing on a handful of them. I’m a firm believer of only focusing up to 5 players. My reasoning is that the more attention you give a player, the more likely he will come to your school. If you go around barely putting 5-10 points for the majority of your players, you might not get any to commit in the end.

I focus all of my efforts on those who already show extra interest like Justin Franklin shown here. Normally you will have 3-5 players who will show this extra interest like he does. What is funny is that in this case, Justin Franklin was the only one of the 12 I picked that  showed extra interest. In this case I press the Prospect Info button to see where I am at on the list. If I am in the top half, then I will probably go after them. Now you might be thinking that 5 players is not enough to commit during the season. You have to remember that the most players you can have on the team at the same time is 70. Divide that into 4 classes and you get 17.5 per class. You get 25 scholarships to hand out every year but you don’t need to have the mindset of “I must sign 25 every year because I can”.

Sooner or later you will be cutting a ton of kids when you didn’t have to. The only time I would go over more than 5 prospects during the season is if I am a powerhouse that is so well known that most prospects want to come to your school. But even then, up to 5 commits during the season is fine for me as I prefer to get most of my commits in the offseason which is more fun anyways.

Pitch Feedback

Pitch feedback is super important because sometimes you will get a + or – sign on a pitch from that player. Here is my simple rule to follow:

• If they have a positive feeling on any of the pitches, go after that player, hard!
• If they have negative feelings toward a pitch, you can still get them but it is an uphill battle.

I have recruited too many players who have shown a ton of interest but have a negative reaction towards a pitch. These guys are hard to get to commit. Don’t get mad if they don’t commit to you. You have been warned. Positive guys are great especially when it comes time for official visits.

Weekly Checkups

This sounds obvious, but you never know when a kid decides to drop you form his list for whatever reason. If that happens, then take his point allotment and put it somewhere else. After every week, a player may or may not respond to a new pitch. You need to adjust your points accordingly here. If any of them have a – sign during the season, you better think long and hard before you decide to continue to go after that player.

Official Visits

If you have made it this far, you should still have your 4 or 5 players ready for their official visits. Unless that prospect has a + sign next to a pitch, you are going to have to guess which one he likes. This sounds obvious but don’t pick the pitches already listed that does not have a + sign. Even if pitch has no – sign by it, that still means he does not like that pitch. It helps a ton if you pick a game you know you can win. I have lost before on a game when I had a prospect visit and was still able to get him to commit, but I believe I just got lucky. It helps a ton if you can win that game.

Also, the sooner that game is the better since if he doesn’t commit after the game, you will have more weeks to try to work on him getting to commit. Finally, when it comes to prospects who have a + sign by a pitch, you can schedule them on an off week and still see the possibility of him committing. It might be a risk, but I have done it several times before so try it if you are feeling froggy.

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Offseason

Walkthrough

You finally made it to the offseason and are ready to tackle offseason duties like recruiting. This videos is the 3rd part of our walktrhough that covers the entire offseason process. Watch this before moving on. The rest below that is more of the same but in written format.

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Offseason Recruiting

School Budgets

Once the season is over, your first item of business is your school budget. You have to decide how to divvy up your percentage points between recruiting, training, and scouting. This greatly impacts how many points you can spend recruiting. Now most will focus their efforts on recruiting first and fill in with the other two afterwards. I actually take the opposite approach. I start with discipline. Over the years I have discovered that the bigger punishment I send out (forcing my discipline bar to lower) the less discipline issues I have in the future. When you start a dynasty, you are given a ton of (hidden) discipline points to use and I try to use every one of them. Whatever it takes to lower the bar the better since it pays off in the long run.

Therefore, the max percentage for discipline for me is usually 20%. As the years go by I will lower this to as low at 10%. Again, this all depends on how harsh you are when it comes to disciplining your players. Now you move on to recruiting and training. Recruiting and training go hand-in-hand for me. Keep it simple here:

• If most of your starters have left = majority points go to recruiting
• If half of your starters leave = split the remaining points between recruiting and training
• If most of your starters stay = majority points go to training
• If you need a total roster turnover (just need better talent overall) = majority points got to recruiting
• If you are short on the amount of players (well below 70) = majority of points go to recruiting

Managing your school budget should be common sense to most but the importance of it cannot be understated.

Players Leaving

I can’t find a rhyme or reason to how much points you should give to persuade a kid to stay for one more year. I have seen their bar be really high and I put a ton of points on them and they still leave, and vice-versa. Therefore, I give them the smallest amount of points possible until they make a decision. It seems the amount of points you spend on them has no bearing on their decision so I give them the lowest and see what happens. Besides, these points come from your recruiting pool. I have spent 1 point on a lot of these guys and they decide to return so go figure. You have nothing to lose going this route.

Scouting

I believe scouting is the most important aspect in recruiting. I want to mention scouting first before actually looking at players. Scouting gives you the precise information you need on any player you pursue. I also think you should spend all of your time in week 1 on scouting so you can devote the rest of your last four weeks to finding pitches and offering scholarships. I have signed too many 3 star players who turned out better than some of my 4 star guys to know how important scouting is. Also (and I believe this is a glitch) but when you scout the game also thinks you pitched each player the Program Prestige pitch. This means that you offered them a “phantom scholarship”.

You still have your allotted 25 scholarships to give out though. This saves you a ton of points of using this pitch down the road when it is already done it for you. If you have scouted every player you wanted to scout and still has some points left over, then you can pitch and offer scholarships (more on this later). The bigger a priority you make of scouting, the greater the chances you have of signing great talent. Later, once we will look at the perfect example of why scouting is so important and how it impacts other areas of recruiting as well.

Uninterested Prospects

Before you start spending points on any player, we must first decide on who to actually recruit. You may be asking yourself, “But Al, don’t you just recruit players who are interested in your school, you know, the ones with the green dots beside their name?” Yes and No. It seems obvious to only go after players who are on the “Interested Prospects” report, but you are missing out on so much talent out there that you still have a chance with.

Look at the image above. You will notice that the QB and MLB are “interested” in me by the green dots. But look at the ATH, DE, and HB. Their interest level bars are pretty high, even though I am not in their top 5.

Now look what happens after I go to week 2. The ATH and the HB now have me in their top 5 which means you have a much better chance of signing them. And all I did was scout them. Now let me introduce you to that Athlete, Vince Hogan.

Notice that all I did the first week was scout him (see how important that is?) Most of his measurables went up and I’m now in his top 5. He is also from my school’s home state! If this doesn’t convince to at least scout these “not-in-my-top-5” players than I don’t know what will. The last thing about these guys: if they don’t put you in their top 5 after week 1, I think it is best to forget about them and focus on truly interested players from here on out. They are worth pursuing in week 1 but if they still won;t put you in their top 5 by week 2 then you don’t need them. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Here is a video about how to take full advantage of those week 2 prospects in greater detail. The first video at the top does the same thing.

Interested Players

Now that you understand how important it is to pursue the “uninterested players”, all you have to do now is pursue the interested players of your choice. Here are the reports I look at the most.

• In-State Prospects – I start here since I like going after local kids and they are cheaper to recruit.
• Interested Prospects – Here you will find the rest of the interest prospects. You will do most of your dirty work here. Try to focus on your Pipeline states if you can while trying to establish new ones.
• All Prospects – Since this lists all of the prospects in order, you have no need to look at the Top 100. This is the best place to find those “uninterested players” we talked about earlier.

Most of this should be common sense stuff here so just go after who you want and adjust your current target list accordingly. Speaking of going after players…

Pitches and Scholarships

After you scouted in week 1 its time to learn how I spend points the rest of the way. Let’s look at Vince Hogan again.

If there isn’t a “+” sign by any of the pitches you throw at a prospect, that means you have to throw different ones at them until you find the right one. In this case, Hogan didn’t care too much about Program Prestige. Therefore, I will try a different pitch. If you don’t get anything from this section, understand this: Unless you find the right pitch for a player, spend the minimum amount of points possible until you do so. All that matters here is trying to find the right pitch. When the player likes one of my pitches, then I might go max with the points. Until then, don’t bother. The only caveat is if after you have offered all the players, if you have some points left over (points don’t carry over from week to week) for that week then you can bump this up. By using another pitch, you automatically give that player a scholarship, thus him going to your Target List (the scout glitch does this for you the first week).

Here is another great example of what scouting can do for you. Here is that HB who had us outside his top 5 but after scouting, not only does he have us in his top 5, but he also likes our Program Prestige pitch (remember the scouting glitch). Here I will spend the max points and hopefully he will commit the following week.

Manage Your Target List

Unless you write a lot of this stuff down, your Target List will be your go-to report to keep up with your targets. The Target list is great since you don’t have to go back to the other reports for your players, thus you can handle all of your maintenance process here. Over the weeks, players will commit to other schools so when this happens go ahead and delete them from the list and go back to your reports to find other players. Basically, let the Target list make your job easier, just for organizational purposes alone.

Discipline and Potential

When you scout prospects, you will find out their discipline and potential ratings. Pay more attention to potential since this truly correlates to how well they respond to their own play on the field as well as how they respond to off-season training. Discipline has been a crap shoot for me. I have signed players with supposed excellent discipline yet get in trouble and vice versa. Since there is no rhyme or reason to it, you can probably ignore it. If you are feeling froggy, do an experiment and track some discipline ratings for your players throughout your dynasty to see if the bad apples are consistently bad or not.

Recruit Athletes Hard

Simply put, the best players I have ever recruited in my 10 years of playing this game came from the Athlete pool. I don’t care what schemes you run, athletes can play multiple positions and can change your program around in one season; I can attest to this. When you scout these players, their numbers can jump all over the place. You can find 2 and 3 star Athletes who can truly make a difference. Sometimes it is hard to tell what positions they are best at (besides QB, K, and P) but it doesn’t matter. If their stats are comparable to other players you have scouted, go after them hard since you never know what diamond in the rough you might find. Again, Vince Hogan is the reason you go after players like these.

Fulfill Your Roster Requirements

This goes back to the offensive and defensive play styles you picked at the beginning of your dynasty. You must fill you roster requirements or the game will add walk-ons to you team that you can’t remove from your roster. Yes you read that correctly. You can’t remove walk-ons from your roster. Since these players are terrible (50’s overall), do what you have to do to fulfill the minimum. If that means signing a 1 or 2 star player then so be it. These players are much better than any walk-on added to your roster.

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Position Changes

The best way I would change players around is to simply jot down their original ratings, move them over to the desired position, and then readjust their ratings to their original state. You can do this before you even start a dynasty by going to the Rosters section and do this. During dynasty you do all of this like normal during the “position change” phase. Who knows? You might get lucky like I did with those two HBs and the game done the adjustments for me. The three biggest changes in ratings initially will be Speed and Strength, thus automatically leading to a lower Awareness rating.

As long as you readjust to their original ratings, you should be fine. Anything extra rating bumps the game adds are just a bonus. Just be mindful that NCAA 06 will not let you move players over if it results in too few players for the original position. For example, in a Spread Offense you have to have 2 TEs minimum on the roster or walk-ons will be put there instead which is the last think you want since you can’t get rid of these players. If you only have 2 TEs you can’t move either one until you find a 3rd TE.

New Possibilities

Changing players around will actually be more beneficial for you before you start your dynasty. Since you can’t switch players around before your first season, there is no reason why you shouldn’t do this yourself before you start your dynasty. This will also open your eyes to some teams you never thought you would use. Perhaps you always wanted to run the Flexbone but just a few teams have a FB that can carry the ball. Now you can just look for teams with bigger stronger HBs, move them over to FB, and readjust their ratings to their original state.

Maybe you have always wanted to have great speed at OLB but was never pleased with the overall speed of that position when recruiting them. Now you can convert SSs to OLB and get that speed you’ve always wanted. Jimmy Johnson done this for years while he was the Coach at Miami. Why can’t you do the same? The possibilities are endless here if you think hard enough.

If you plan on taking this thing to the max, I highly recommend you write all of these original ratings down, just in case you want to move these guys back over to their original position. You never know when you want to use a different scheme and you need that one guy to play back at his original position.

Common Position Changes

Now let’s look at some possible and realistic changes you can make to your squad.

QB: The only thing you can do here is recruit athletes who have Throwing Power and Throwing Accuracy with their attributes. Yes you can move a WR or any other speedster to QB if you use a run heavy offense but there is no point in this since these guys can’t throw, period. Speedy QBs are easy to find and recruit in 06 so there is no reason to go crazy here.

HB: There are plenty of HBs, both big and small, powerful and fast in this game so there is no real reason to convert another player to this position. However, there is one option that I believe can be very useful. If you are an Air Raid, Run & Shoot, or any other pass happy gamer, I think you should convert a receiving TE to FB and use the FB sub packages for all of your spread formations. Now you have a SuperBack! He will be big, can catch, and can pass block. He is the perfect HB for your offense. Good luck finding HBs who can catch and pass block as well as any receiving TE. His Carry rating will be sub par at best, but if 95% of the time all he’ll be doing is blocking or catching passes, then it is a no brainer to convert these guys. This conversion alone was the inspiration for this post!

FB: Power HBs run the ball better than FBs and TEs are better at receiving and sometimes blocking than any fullback you will recruit. Outside of my SuperBack scenario, there is no point in recruiting FBs when there are better options out there.

WR: Natural WRs in 06 are really great. They come in all sizes and flavors. So there is very little reason to convert a player to WR. However, if you are a run heavy team, there is no reason why you can’t convert a receiving TE to WR. Yes they will never have the speed but if their main job is to block, move them over since their blocking skills will be better than any behemoth WR you can recruit.

TE: If you never throw the ball to your TE, maybe you can find an offensive lineman to move over for extra beef up front. Other than that, TEs are pretty great themselves, both receiving and blocking, that you will probably never need have to convert someone here.

OL: This doesn’t work well here and you don’t need to really. Besides, you can move around your tackles, guards, and centers to the other line positions and you won’t skip a beat.

DE:  Big, strong LBs work well here. I actually never recruit DEs. I always convert big LBs since they give me the speed I need. If you are a 3-4 guy, you could mover smaller DTs over but there are probably enough really big DE anyways, but it won’t hurt to experiment with this though.

DT: The hardest position to convert to. 06 creates DTs that range in weight from 250s to 320s. No reason to convert anyone here. I would love to move huge OL over to DT but their tackle ratings would be terrible. If you are a 3-4 guy, maybe you experiment with this since there are plenty of 6’2 350 OL in this game. Surprisingly though, there are several huge “athletes” that work well here so be on the lookout for those guys. I once recruited a 6’10 340lb athlete and moved him to DT. He was a beast. He probably would have played even better in a 3-4 defense instead of my 4-3.

OLB: You can convert SS to OLB for your speed-minded 4-3. Outside of that, the weight and size range of natural OLBs work just fine for the position.

MLB: These guys are designed really well in 06 so I have never felt the need to convert someone over to this position.

CB: WRs are a possibility here. Other than that, you need speed at the position, regardless of which defense you use. On average, the fastest players in the game are CBs so I doubt you will ever have to convert someone to CB.

FS/SS: Another set of positions in which I doubt you will ever need to switch anyone over to these. Besides, you should never have trouble finding quality safeties anyways.

K/P: I think these guys are interchangeable and I often have the same guy handling both duties anyways.

Athletes: You have no choice but to move these guys to other positions but don’t forget about these players 2-3 seasons down the road. You might have a 3rd string Athlete turned QB that you know will not see the field anytime soon. He maybe be better suites somewhere else. The best player I ever recruited was a JUCO Athlete who was equally good at QB, HB, WR, OLB, FS, and SS. Just because you have him at one position doesn’t mean he might need to play somewhere else before he leaves your school.

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More Tips & Tools

Offense Recruiting

These videos break down how I like to recruit to various schemes and positions so you can mix and match personnel for your chosen offense.

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Defense & Special Teams Recruiting

This video breaks down how I like to recruit certain defense schemes and positions so you can mix and match personnel for your chosen defense. I also cover how to recruit special team players.

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BCS Bottom Feeder Tips

This is my story on how I won a national title in my first season with Duke, a BCS bottom feeder academic progrm. These tips can help you accomplish the same thing. Trying to turn an academic, non-traditional school like Duke into a powerhouse is not easy. It is considered one of the toughest challenges in a game. Over the years you have heard me talk about my other Duke dynasty when I won the National Championship in their first season.

If you have played 06 much, you know how bad Duke is in the game. They have a rating of “C” across the board: Overall, Offense, Defense, and Special Teams. They are also in one of the toughest divisions in a very tough Atlantic Coast Conference. Add in the fact that I played on Heisman difficulty, you can say the odds were stacked against me. So how did I pull off this seemingly impossible feat? Let’s break that down as I believe these tips can help when you are the underdog.

Roster Fit

My plan going into that dynasty was to run a pro style offense, and Duke’s current roster fit that. I also knew I was going to run the ball a lot to control the clock so it helped that my backfield had enough decent halfbacks to make it at least feasible. The offensive line was average too but doable. I don’t think I would have had much success if I had a team that couldn’t run the ball that well. I could be wrong, but it is easier for me to have upset wins by running the clock via the run.

Clock Control

I am a firm believer that in order to win with an underdog roster, you have to prioritize the ability to control the clock. Most of my upset victories over vastly superior teams have come from me holding onto the ball as much as possible. Modern offenses now treat the clock as their enemy where in fact it can become your friend. The easiest way to control the clock is to make the running game the focal point of your offense.

Yes, you can run a ball-controlled passing attack like the West Coast or Air Raid offense, but dropped passes can hinder your ability to run clock. Nothing can run the clock better than simply handing the ball off to your halfback, fullback, and other skill players over and over again. The main reason we want to control the clock is the keep the ball away from the opposing offense as much as possible. More often than not, you will not have much talent on defense to stop better offenses on a consistent basis. So why not play defense while on offense by playing “keep away”? On most plays, I didn’t snap the ball until the play clock got under 3 seconds. There is no reason to snap the ball as soon as your offense is set in an underdog situation. As long as you have the mindset of “controlling the clock keeps us in every game against better teams”, this will instill confidence that you can defeat any team on your schedule.

Run the Ball!

Now let’s get into the playbook and plays themselves. Here are the run concepts I used:

1. HB Slam
2. HB Dive/Iso
3. HB Off Tackle
4. HB Counter Weak
5. HB/Power Option (my Toss play)
6. FB Dive/Blast
7. FB Over/Weak

These are the seven distinct run concepts I use to punish defenses while also controlling the clock. Notice that none of these plays are option plays as HB/Power Option is only used as a toss play. This means that you will not need a running quarterback to make this offense work. In fact, I think running an option offense for this situation can be counter-intuitive. Option plays require the QB to pitch the ball most of the time, pitching the ball can cause problems. mostly fumbles. You will also notice that 6 of the 7 plays above have the QB literally handing the ball to the backs, only HB/Power Option has the ball in the air at some point. But I’m not going to lie, having a dual threat QB would be nice too. These plays also attack every gap your offensive line can offer. They will allow you to attack between the center, guards, tackles, and tight ends. Finally, notice how all of the plays are available in mostly under-center formations. That’s right, you will be under center most of the time.

Formation Advantage

Speaking of formations, you can use various sets to amplify your offense while also punishing the defense. Here are of the formations I used (from what I remember):

1. Ace Big Twin WR
2. Ace Normal
3. Ace Slot
4. Ace Spread
5. I-Form Normal
6. I-Form Twins
7. Weak Normal
8. Gun Y-Trips
9. Gun Trips

You will notice some trends. Like I mentioned earlier, I use mostly under-center sets as the run game is more diverse from these sets, you don’t have to worry about high snaps like you would if in shotgun formations. You will also notice mostly two and three-wide sets. This lets you move WRs around so you can use more grass or blocking to your advantage.

Pass When Needed

I would pass the ball when needed such as obvious 3rd down situations, and I used play action to complement my run game. I had maybe two 3rd-down pass plays I would always go to and a few great man and zone beating plays that could really change a game. But in the end, I still threw the ball maybe 20-25% of the time. And this is with an impact QB who was a pocket passer.

What About Defense?

I am a 4-3 guy, and I feel this gives me the best chance to stop opponents. I like having a four-man front as I think I can stop the run better with it. Other than that, I don’t think I did anything special on defense. I tend to make a better impact controlling an OLB. Unfortunately I don’t remember as much about the defense as I do the offense. I’m sure my defense made enough big plays to make an impact at least.

I Got Lucky

This is the biggest reason I was able to win it all in my first season with Duke. It helps that:

• I didn’t turn the ball over much like the other teams did
• I converted my 3rd downs
• I didn’t have any big injuries
• My non-conference schedule wasn’t loaded (the conference schedule is tough enough)
• I played defense on both fronts by controlling clock

I doubt I could ever pull this off again as you can see with my recent Duke dynasty, a Duke dynasty is a challenging one, but that is part of the fun. At least this gives you somewhat of a blueprint that can help you pull of some upsets in your dynasty.

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1AA Team Survival Tips

Building a 1-AA (FCS) program into an FBS dynasty is extremely hard. Some might call this type of dynasty the hardest way to build up a program. There are very simple reasons for this: lack of talent and little to no Program and Coach Prestige to recruit with. You will have the worst team at the FBS level starting out, regardless of where and who you switch them out with. Gamers tend to quit this type of dynasty after one or two seasons simply because it is too hard and that is understandable.

However, I think I can help you survive the first few critical seasons as once you get over that seemingly impossible hump, then you will reap your rewards. Below are some tips on how to handle such a tough situation along with some other ideas to make your dynasty more enjoyable.

Pre-Dynasty

#1 – Choose a Team Based on Offensive Talent, Their Looks, or Preferably Both

There are a few things to think about when choosing an FCS team to move into the FBS and build up. The first option is to pick a team that fits what you want to do schematically, especially on offense. If you want to run the ball a lot, picking a team with at least one good HB makes sense. Do you want to throw it 50 times a game? It will be easier if you pick a team that has some good WRs, a good TE, and/or a decent QB. If you plan on going this route, go to the 1-AA Rosters and look at every team and make a list of teams that match what you want to accomplish on offense. I have a tip later on why focusing on the offensive side of the ball is more important at the beginning of your dynasty. While picking a team that fits what you want to do on offense makes sense, I think choosing a team based on how they look is equally important.

Picking and moving up an FCS team into the FBS means one thing: you’re in this dynasty for the long haul as it will take you several seasons before you get anywhere close to accomplishing your goals. Since you will be investing so many seasons with one team, it only helps to pick a team that have great looking uniforms and a stadium you would be satisfied with. You may find a team that fits your offense perfectly, but if their uniforms look butt-ugly, you will probably quit along the way. At least be satisfied with how your team looks, and if the team you chose has the talent you need, then that is icing on the cake.

#2 – Put Your Team in a Conference That Makes Sense

There are technically three routes to take when deciding where to start your team. The first option makes no sense and I suggest you avoid this and that is to put them in an Power 5 conference. Unless you want a ridiculously hard challenge and want to make things hard for the sake of making things hard (or just bored), don’t put your team in a conference loaded with top-flight teams. Instead, put your team in a Group of 5 conference or as an Independent. I choose to stay on the side of realism on all of my decisions with this game so starting in a lower-tier conference makes the most sense.

Lastly, pay attention to geography. If you decide to run a dynasty with Montana, don’t put them in the Sun Belt. At least try to put your team in a conference that is close to where your team is located. Also, don’t forget the option of putting your team as an Independent. This means you will not be a in a conference, but at least you have free reign over your entire schedule.

#3 – Pay Attention to Which Team You Swap Out

Believe it or not, the team you swap out with your newly chosen team is very important for two reasons. First, you will take over the schedule of the team you swapped out with. Maybe you have an idea of starting a dynasty with Alabama A&M and want to start a rivalry with UAB in Conference USA. It only makes sense to replace a team that is in the same division as UAB so you are guaranteed on playing them every season. Putting them in the other division means you might not play UAB for several seasons. Also, schedule 12 games instead of 11 so you can potentially win one more which leads to more points to work with in the offseason (added after posting).

Second and more importantly, pay special attention to the Discipline bar of the team you swap out. I learned this the hard way in my Yale dynasty. I swapped with Temple but their Discipline Bar was very high out of the gate. I could never lower the bar and before I knew it, I was on probation. So be careful with which team you swap with as you will inherit their discipline bar so use common sense and don’t put yourself behind the 8-ball starting out.

During the Season

#4 – Don’t Bother Redshirting Players

If you have ever seen my dynasty videos, you know I love to redshirt players. Gaining an extra season on a player is great, especially when it looks like that player won’t play much that season. However, we need to rethink about redshirting with an FCS team, at least for the first few years. First of all, your initial roster will be so bad that holding a bad player back makes no sense. All you are doing is bringing back a player that still won’t ever play and using up a scholarship when you could be using it on someone better.

The number one goal as a head coach in this type of dynasty it get better players. You can over-recruit/cut players (more on this later) or flush out your current roster via graduation. By not redshirting, you are one step closer to having your bad player graduate and move on so new talent can come in and take their place. This will help with recruiting even more as having little to no players a a certain position will attract more prospects. So let those players graduate as fast as possible to you can move on with better players.

However, there are a few exceptions to redshirting the first few seasons. A prime example is having to two decent QBs on the roster. One is senior and the other is younger. In this case, if you can, feel free to redshirt the backup QB and hope your starter survives the season. There may be other situations similar to this so use your best judgement. But let’s be honest, your first two seasons will be so void of talent that having multiple good players at one position will be very slim to none.

#5 – Set a Realistic Schedule Relative to Your Current Program Prestige

You can make your schedule as easy or as hard as you want, but I like to keep my schedule realistic for the current roster I am working with. If you put your team in a conference then you only have a few games to worry about scheduling on your own. Again, if you want a very hard challenge, load up your schedule. I think you’ll will not enjoy this and quit but who am I to judge?

This is just an idea but I have a simple rule in determining how hard your schedule should be: Schedule the number of ranked teams equal to your current program prestige. Since you will be starting out as a 1-star school, only schedule one Top 25 team. If you are a 4-star program, have four ranked teams on your schedule. Again, this is just an idea but at least this takes the questioning out of who to schedule every year.

#6 – Pick Mostly Offensive Players During In-Season Recruiting

You’re going to have a terrible team to start with and you need better bodies at every position, but you need better players on offense more than you need them on defense. There are simple reasons for this. First, in order to win games (which effects everything) you need to be able to outscore the other team to win (duh!). Second, you need to be able to sustain drives by moving the ball. This means that with a decent offense, you can control the clock. I can’t tell you how important it is to be able to control the clock. It will be years before you can field a decent defense that can make a difference. However, you can control clock and play keep-away as you will quickly understand how your offense can play defense with this strategy. I will cover more of this later on but by all means, don’t completely neglect defensive players, especially if they are highly interested in you.

Now that you understand how important offense can be when starting out, it only helps to recruit better players on that side of the ball out of the gate. You have 12 slots to fill during in-season recruiting so going after 8+ offensive players makes the most sense. You need these bodies to score, sustain drives, and run clock until your defense can catch up a few seasons down the road. Also, the odds you getting 3-star or better prospects in the offseason are low. Thankfully, since there are no 1 and 2-star prospects in in-season recruiting, this means you should be able snag a few 3-star kids then which will probably be better than anything you will get in the offseason.

#7 – Put All of Your Recruiting Points in 2-4 Prospects

There are two methods to spreading recruiting points during the regular season. The first is to evenly spread points to all 12 prospects at the beginning and adjust accordingly throughout the season. This method works great if you are winning or have a good enough team to win consistently. However, I believe this can backfire with a team that you know will not win many games that season. In our situation, I doubt you will win many games the first two seasons with your bad FCS-turned FBS team. No offense, but the road will be tough and anyone who has played a dynasty in this game knows how important winning is.

Thankfully we have another method of recruiting which is going all in on a handful of recruits. Since prospects heavily react to teams that win and you know you probably won’t win many games the first season or so, at least you can load up points on a few prospects and show them love that way. Dumping 25% or more of your points on one prospect will keep them intrigued longer. Add in a win here and there and that combo should help you snag a few recruits that you probably would not get otherwise by spreading your points too thin. But by all means, if you have had success recruiting in-season with the Spread method in your first few years with an FCS team, please let us know!

#8 – Focus Only On 3-Star or Below Prospects

I can’t believe I have to talk about this but it must be mentioned: only recruit 3-star prospects during the season. I know we all want 4 and 5-star kids to come to our school out of the gate, but we have to be honest with ourselves. You are a 1-star program. You can’t expect high-end talent to be interested in your school. Make it easy on yourself and recruit to your program’s level. Heck, even 3-star kids are higher than we need to go after but we have no choice during the season as like I said earlier, the lowest-tiered prospects to recruit during the season are 3-star players so we have no choice.

But hey, if you can’t find that 11th or 12th spot to fill, take a chance on a 4-star kid in your own state and see what happens. You might get lucky and he commits, just don’t expect it to happen. After a couple of years, hopefully your prestige will increase and you’ll have a better chance of getting those high-tiered guys by then.

#9 – Lower the Discipline Bar

In your first season as coach in any Dynasty you are given plenty of points to handle discipline situations. I would take advantage of this and over-discipline players if your Discipline Bar is moderately or very high. Trust me, the last thing you need as a coach with a bad team is being put on probation. My Yale dynasty is proof of this. The first season is a great chance to lower that bar to practically negate discipline altogether in the long run. I believe the game rewards coaches is over-discipline with less rowdy players later on but I could be wrong.

On the Field

#10 – Adjust Your Schemes to Your Roster, Not the Other Way Around

Whenever I start a dynasty, I always start with what type of offense I want to run. Once I decide on an offense, I then will go to the rosters and find a team that has some talent that can fit that scheme in some way. I also love many types of offenses and defenses, especially system-type schemes. However, all of this is tough to execute when your team is so bad to start with. With an FCS team, you will barely have two players that can be of use with the rest of the roster being pure garbage. So the idea of picking a particular offense and running it exactly like it should with a team that only has two or three players that fit that system can result in failure.

Fear not, this does not mean you can’t use a particular offense due to poor talent, I believe you should adjust around your talent until you can bring better players in. All of this means you need to add some Bell Cow strategy to whatever scheme you plan on using long term.

For example, say I want to run the I-Option offense and the FCS team I picked only has two decent HBs but no talent at WR, FB, and TE. Oh by the way, your QBs are slow. So what you do is trim the offense to where only your good players, in this case your two HBs, touch the ball the vast majority of the snaps. This means you take out all of the option plays since your QBs are slow and you make sure both of your HBs are on the field at all times via sub packages. Make sense? Once you have a couple recruiting classes, you will keep adjusting the offense to your roster until you have enough talent to run the entire offense.

The same can be said with defense. By all means, pick the defense that you know you can run. However, you also need to adjust to your defense by making sure your best 11 players are on the field the majority of the time. A great example of this is my Indiana dynasty. In my first season, my best 11 on defense was actually the Dime formation. My 2nd and 3rd CBs were better than both of my OLBs so it only made sense to play Dime most of the time. Again, just use common sense and make sure your best players are on the field most of the time. This is how many coaches get fired due to being so stubborn with what they want to run and refuse to adjust to their talent.

#11 – Take Advantage of Sub Packages and Formation Subs

To go along with the idea of working with your talent and not against it, please use Sub Packages and Formation Subs to put your best players in positions to be more useful with certain plays. If you have a good TE, use sub packages that put him in the slot if there’s a play you really like where the slot is the main read. If your HB can catch the ball, try him out at WR via Sub Packages. One thing to remember: Sub Packages do not effect player ratings, Formation Subs do. Placing a TE in the Slot via a sub package will not hurt his ratings, but moving him there via Formation Subs will.

Sub Packages are great for putting a player in a spot where they are not normally supposed to be such as a HB in a WR spot. Formation Subs works best if you want a WR at another WR position so pay attention to the differences.

#12 – Run Clock on Offense

I mentioned this in an earlier tip and for good reason. The ability to sustain drives and run clock will not only help your defense but will also keep the other team’s offense off the field. The other team can’t score if they don’t have the ball. I have given this example a few times in the past, but I was able to win a National Title with Duke the first season using this strategy. Using this strategy also means you need to look at each game by possessions. Instead of looking at the scoreboard and seeing you are down seven points, look at it as being down one possession. This is even more important the close you get to the fourth quarter. Does this mean you have to implement a run-oriented offense? No. Did I run an simple run-heavy offense that season with Duke? Yes.

However, if you have a decent QB and a WR and/or TE that can catch, you can run clock via the passing game as well. As long as you’re completing passes, the clock will run the same in this situation. Another good example of running clock is the first two years in the Butch Jones era at Tennessee. Jones is a big Spread guy and believes in going fast all the time. The problem with that strategy is if you’re not moving the ball resulting in quick 3-and-outs. Our defense wasn’t that good then yet they were on the field all the time because our offense produced constant 3-and-outs that took up little time on the clock thus forcing our defense to be on the field way longer than they needed to be. Just remember that the clock is your friend so take advantage of it until better players arrive.

Offseason

#13 – Put Most of Your Points in Recruiting

Once the season is over, you are given the chance to dispense your points into Recruiting, Training, and Discipline. If you are lucky enough to have a low Discipline Bar by the end of the season, you know you don’t have to put many points there. Since your current roster is very bad, there is little point in dumping many points in Training. Why bother making terrible players less terrible when you can use those points to simply get better talent? That is why most of your points should go to Recruiting. Since you are dealing with percentages, I suggest a 70-80% Recruiting, 0-10% Training, and 20-30% split. Adjust accordingly to you current situation.

#14 – Over-Recruit Your Current Roster

I am normally not a fan of over-recruiting current players. If I only have 15 spots to fill, I would prefer to only bring in 15 new players. However, if you look are your current FCS roster, you will notice the back half contains players in the 40s and 50s. No offense to these guys but they will never contribute to your team. That is why I suggest you load up on as many players as you can. Many 1 and 2-star prospects are better than any player you have with that low of rating. Every year you have 25 scholarships to give, use them all every season if you can until your roster is good enough to be more forgiving on your current players.

#15 – Put Most, If Not All, Points On Giving Scholarships, Not Scouting

I am going to take a wild guess and say you will barely win a few games your first season. This means you will not have many points to use in the Offseason. Because you have very few points to play with, you need all the points you can get to offer scholarships. Now I am a big believer in scouting players but scouting costs points and the only way players can commit to your school is offering them scholarships, you must focus on those offers. Besides, any 1, 2 and 3-star player you recruit will be better than 90% of the players on your team anyways. Once you win some more, you will have enough points to scout but until then, focus on getting commitments.

#16 – Try to Recruit Locally and Only Pipeline States

This tip is very simple, the closer a prospect is to your school, the cheaper it is to recruit him. The same goes for pipeline states, the game throws you an extra bone or two if you keep recruiting from pipeline states. You can expand your geographical horizons once you start winning more and have more points to play with but until then, keep it local.

#17 – Focus On Key Positions That You Know Can Impact Your Team

This may sound obvious but do whatever it takes to get the best QB, HB, MLB, or any other position that is super important to your offense and defense. If this means you need to scout to make sure that a particular player is a must-have then spend the extra points. This also means that you may have recruit someone farther away if that position is a big need. I know this sounds like I am contradicting my previous point, but if there is a QB that is interested in you and you know he can change your program in one season but he is 3,000 miles away, it is worth taking a chance on him by spending more points. Use your best judgement.

#18 – Load Up On Athletes

Speaking of key positions, you can’t go wrong on going after plenty of Athletes. The best QB I ever had in my Yale dynasty was a 2-star Athlete. Athletes can truly change a program as soon as they step on campus. Don’t let the stars fool you, Athletes at all levels have a chance to make your life much easier so you might as well get as many athletes as you can.

#19 – Don’t Be Too Picky With Prospects

At the beginning of your dynasty you had the idea of running a pass-happy offense. But what do you do if a great scrambling QB wants to come to your school? You recruit him of course? You are at the early stages of your dynasty. You can’t afford to be picky about talent just because a player may not fit your scheme. I wanted to run a Power Coast Offense when I first started with Yale. That all changed when I got that 2-star Athlete that could run the ball. I quickly adjusted to my talent by switching offenses which paid off big time later on. Besides, you never know who is going to get hurt and you’ll be thankful you recruited that player. Feel free to be more picky once you have enough talent to do so.

#20 – Be Efficient With Your Pitch Points

This tip works for any dynasty situation but it is even more important in our case. Only offer the minimum amount of points to a prospect until you find which pitch he likes. Then you can raise the points to try and seal the deal. You’ll have so few points to start with that you’ll almost have no choice to do this but I thought it was worth mentioning.

#21 – Take Your Time and Play Around With Position Changes

Position Changes are very useful. You never know, you make have a big, slow WR that may turn out to be a great TE. The best player I ever had in my Yale dynasty was a CB. That CB could also catch the ball as well. For two seasons I was low on WR talent so I let that CB play both ways. Needless to say, he made an impact on offense and defense. This works even better in other scenarios such as moving LBs to DE. All of my dynasties have plenty of examples of this. Moving a big, strong LB to DE can work wonders. So please, take your time and try out all of your players and see if any of them fit at a better position. Also, don’t move true freshmen. Wait until the next year to do this as the game penalizes you for moving them that first year with the exception being Athletes of course.

Conclusion

I can probably think of a few more tips to give but I think these 21 tips cover most of it. Taking over an FCS team, moving them up in the FBS, and trying to turn them into a powerhouse is a hard and long road. Hopefully everything above can make your journey a little less bumpy than before.

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Recruiting When Switching to a Winless Team

This is what happened in my UNLV dynasty when taking over Mississippi State… Nothing is more fun and rewarding for me than turning around a program, especially one that is at the very bottom of a conference. What worries me though is the lack of points I will get to use in my first offseason as those points are directly correlated with how many wins you have the previous season. This situation has motivated me to run a few tests in Dynasty Mode by seeing what happens when you take over a zero-win program during a dynasty from a recruiting and school budget perspective. Let’s find out. Again, this is only a test as I’m still currently the head coach at UNLV.

The First Test

Here you can see my current team, UNLV, about to finish our third season that will more than likely begin the following season as a 5-star program.

And here is Mississippi State, 0-11, that badly needs a new coach to change their program for the better.

I decide to resign from UNLV and take over the reigns at Mississippi State.

Let’s put all of our points into Recruiting to get a better idea of how many points (if any) we will be working with.

With no points being spent on convincing players to stay, I should have 100% of my points in Recruiting. Will you look at that, I have 184 points to spend! This is not what I expected. I thought the game would give me zero points to spend but no, I can do some actual recruiting with those numbers. This is good news for anyone who had doubts about taking over a winless team as you should have points to play with in the offseason. I don’t know if some of these points came with me from UNLV. I’m guessing not but either way, this information is very helpful.

The Second Test

I decided not to stop there. I also wanted to tinker with the school budget to see if there was anything odd with the points.

Let’s see what happens when I set Recruiting to 50% instead of 100%. Will I get to spend exactly half of what we saw above which was 184?

It looks like we don’t. With Recruiting set at 50%, I received 115 points to spend which is well above what I was expecting. This means that school budgets are weighted in some way. This situation reminded me of my first offseason at Yale. I finished the first season 1-10. Here’s what happened in that offseason.

I set the Recruiting budget at 70%, hoping to use some points to recruit players.

It turned out that I only had 23 points to play with, much lower than I ever expected, especially when you compare it to the numbers above with Mississippi State. And by the way, how awesome is the name “Stanford Stanford”? And from Beverly Hills no less.

The Third Test

The last test I wanted to run was if Coach Prestige had any effect on the amount of points you get to use in the offseason. In the first test I resigned from UNLV before the season ended. Anytime you quit a job your Coach Prestige goes down one star so since I was a 4-star coach, I became a 3-star coach at Mississippi State. For this test I took the Mississippi State job after the season ended. I became a 5-star coach, quit the UNLV job which made me a 4-star coach. Here is what happened when I put 100% of my points in recruiting as a 4-star in stead of a 3-star coach.

As you can see, I start out with 207 points. That is a 23-point jump from 184 when I was a 3-star coach. This obviously means that Coach Prestige directly effects your school budget. Also, both the first test and this one had Mississippi State demoted to a 2-star program.

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? At least we know it’s possible to start out with a decent amount of points to play with if you ever decide to take over a winless team. My biggest fear with taking over a team like this has now gone away. More importantly, we also found out that Coach Prestige effects how many points you receive every season. How much of a percentage that factors in remains to be seen. I was a 1-star coach at Yale when I only had 23 points to play with so there is some correlation there. I believe previous season wins and Coach Prestige factor in this equation in some way. Also, it seems that school budgets are weighted. You would think dropping the Recruiting budget in half will yield half the points but that’s obviously not the case.

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1A Team Scouting

Below is a table of 1A team info that show what schemes they run along with their tendencies. Use the sort and filter options to find what you need.

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Ratings Conversion Chart

Below is a chart showing several ratings and how they convert to certain attributes for most, if not all of the NCAA Football games for the Playstation 2 & Xbox. As far as I know, these ratings are the same for NCAA Football 2002-11 but I can’t confirm this. I do know they are compatible for NCAA Football 06 & 07. This info originally came from someone who gave it to Evil Dave which is on his NCAA Football 07 Recruiting Guide.

I have tested and proofed many of these ratings, but it is possible something maybe off one point or so. This chart is best used to see what how good prospects will be when you recruit them. Speed (SPD), jump (JMP), strength (STR), tackle (TKL), run blocking (RBK), and break tackle (BTK) attributes are shown. Other attributes like catch (CTH) are position specific so I hope to provide those conversions in the future among any others I can configure.