If you’re playing College Football 26’s Dynasty Mode, you’ll soon realize recruiting is one of the most important aspects of your career. Bringing in fresh talent, sorting through the bulk to find gems, and keeping your team together with whatever resources are available isn’t that easy. Since all of this can be overwhelming, having a roadmap to follow makes it easier.
That’s what we’re here to provide you with today. Recruiting new players is a lengthy and tedious task, involving not only your time and effort but also extensive knowledge of the game. How much are you willing to invest in a player, and is it a worthwhile investment? How do you recruit 5-star players as a lower-tier school?
Breaking Down The Process
Before we dive in, let’s break down the process of recruitment in CFB 26. Firstly, you’ll need to pick your head coach’s backstory. This is basically what your head coach excels in. Next comes your coach build, something you will customize as you progress further.
Once you’re done with the prelude, we come to the actual recruitment process. The recruitment process proceeds as follows:
- Going through your Prospect List
- Selecting the best prospects and adding them to your Recruiting Board
- Spending hours on them in different forms (scouting, offering scholarships, sending the house, etc.)
- Closing the deal and having them commit to your school.
That’s the gist of the recruitment process. Looks simple enough? That’s a good sign. Recruiting is a lengthy process, spanning multiple in-game weeks. Losing hope early or not being able to follow up makes it difficult to find good recruits. But without further ado, let’s get into the best recruiting methods in CFB 26.
Coach Build And Backstory
Having a good backstory for your head coach is essential in landing higher-tier prospects, or any prospects in general. You have the option between 3 backstories: motivator, recruiter, and tactician. All three have different strengths and favour different playstyles; however, as a rule of thumb, it is better to start with the motivator initially.
- Motivator (more of a focus on player development and the culture of the school)
- Recruiter (attract better talent and get them to commit to the school faster)
- Tactician (player’s ratings are better on gameday)
The motivator enables you to prioritize player development and school culture above all else. This helps your current roster perform more effectively and makes your school a more attractive choice for potential prospects. You can transition later on to recruiter or tactician, depending on the stage of the game you’re at. The only thing to keep in mind is that you can only unlock other build paths every 10 levels, so use your points wisely.
The next step in the recruitment process is the coach build. The topic of coach building requires a separate article altogether, so we’re going to skip that for now. To find the best beginner build for you, you can simply go to YouTube and find popular coach builds currently in the meta. That should get your head coach set up with a build and backstory. Now, onto the grind part.
Prospect Selection
When you enter the recruiting menu for the first time, it might seem a bit overwhelming. The recruiting menu in CFB 26 has five sub-sections: recruiting board, prospect list, transfer portal, my school, and top classes. The only tabs you need to be concerned with initially are the first two, the recruiting board and prospect list.
Explaining the UI
The UI for the Prospect List tab is absolutely loaded with information, so we thought we’d break that down for you. Here’s all the information you receive from this tab:
- Targets, hours, scholarships. Think of these like your in-game currency or coins. You spend hours and scholarships to show interest in players, while targets are the total number of recruits you can target at a time (35). Hours decrease in the regular season compared to the preseason.
- Team needs. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Recommended by the game, these are the positions your team needs recruits for. This is important, especially if you need a QB and you’re focusing on a Mike defender.
- Filters. There are several categories according to which prospects are sorted, where rating, interest, and pipeline are the most important. Pressing L1/LB opens a filter-by-position while pressing R1/RB opens different filters, like only specific-tier prospects or top prospects for you. Staging also comes into play, but we’ll explain later on.
Combing Your Prospects
Open up your prospect list to see a list of all your potential prospects. This includes players from a variety of high schools, different pipelines, varying tiers, and even layered interest in joining your particular school. Now, here’s where your initial school rating comes in. If you’re a 5-star school like Georgia or Notre Dame, you’re bound to have more 5-star prospects in this list. Lower-tier schools like Hawaii or Ball State will probably have 2 and 3-star prospects at best.
Depending on where your team is ranked, you should always aim for players one star above your rating at most. Going any higher might waste your hours since the chances of them committing to you are minimal. Why would a 5-star QB join a 1-star Rice program when he can probably get into LSU, or even Michigan? So, for the first year at least, only target prospects at your tier or one star above you. Remember, you can only target 35 prospects max.
Playing Around Pipelines
Pipelines play a key role in recruitment in CFB 26. The stronger the pipeline, the stronger the recruits appear on your prospect list. But besides that, showing interest in them (through scouting, offering scholarships) requires fewer hours compared to someone outside of your pipeline. And when you’re aiming for 15-20 potential prospects, hours can drop really fast.
Pipelines come in 5 tiers, the purple pipeline icon being the highest tier. If possible, try to focus more on players with purple pipeline icons in front of them. It is advisable not to go below a Tier 3 pipeline, especially when contesting higher-star players. Any program having a Tier 5 pipeline on that talent will have a massive advantage over you. Next, once you’ve gotten an idea of who to focus on, let’s move on to targeting.
Knowing The Competition
When targeting a player, knowing who you’re up against is vital information, and there are several factors that go into this. Here are some examples of when to proceed, or drop, a potential prospect:
- You have a T5 pipeline as a 3-star team, but so does a 5-star team. They have more hours to spend at the same rate: Drop.
- You’re nearing your max target limit and have a strong, high-star prospect, but still have several positions you need filled: Drop.
- You’re at a T4 pipeline, but the team above you is a smaller program you’re confident you can beat: Proceed.
- The top 3 teams in contention have the same tier pipeline, but you’re gaining more interest per week: Proceed.
These were just some examples to help explain that different factors play a role in recruiting, and understanding them will save you crucial hours to put towards someone else. Recruitment isn’t straightforward like who has the best pipeline, or that 5-star programs are guaranteed to get all the best recruits. While there’s an inclination, you might just get lucky sometimes.
We’d advise only targeting 15-20 prospects at a time. Going for 35 prospects will spread you thin, and you’ll probably end up losing out on most due to a lack of hours. Your main focus is players with 1st or 2nd INT and T4/5 pipelines. Also, make sure to get a mix of the same-star or one-star-higher prospects. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Once you’ve selected your batch of potential prospects, it’s time to start allocating hours.
Hour Allocation And Investment
This can be thought of as stage two in a two-part recruitment guide. Stage one was targeting the ideal recruits, and stage two is putting in the hours where they matter. Toggle over to the Recruiting Board tab to view the prospects you targeted. There’s not that much to explain in the UI here, except for the option to filter according to interest or stars. To start off, we’d recommend filtering your board according to interest.
Re-Evaluating Board State
You want your board to be as focused as possible, so you’re not wasting resources on players less likely to join. When you filter according to interest, remove any players that don’t have you as their top 9 interests. The chances of you recruiting those players are minimal, regardless of your pipeline tier.
As we mentioned before, you also want to keep your board on around 15-20 players as a 5-star team. If you’re a lower-star team, aim for 10-15, filling positions you need first. This is to ensure you can go all in on a player if you need them. Re-evaluating your board can also help remove any players you added accidentally, or who don’t have a strong pipeline with you.
Scouting And Scholarships
The next step is scouting. Scout the top 8-12 players on your board, leaving enough points to offer them scholarships. Adjust your scouting according to your hours, but make sure to scout players all the way. You’ll also find some gems and busts during scouting.
Players from your pipeline require 10 hours to scout, while those with lower-tier pipelines require more hours. If you’re going for a player with no pipeline, he might require 25-35 hours to scout, hours which could have been split between 3 potential pipeline recruits. This is why recruiting from your pipeline is extremely important.
After scouting potential prospects, go ahead and offer them scholarships. This should increase their interest in your program. An important tip here is to calculate the hours you’re putting into scouting and scholarships beforehand. This way, you won’t have scouted a player you’re not able to offer a scholarship to. Once this is done, go through your board according to role, and favourite one player for each role. Don’t end up spending all your hours on 2 5-star QBs.
Adding Actions – Sending the House
You’ve narrowed down the list, sent your scholarships, and gone through the first week. Your hours should be refreshed, meaning now it’s time to apply actions to players. There are seven actions you can take, each requiring a different number of hours: search the social media (5), DM the player (10), contact friends and family (25), send the house (50), sway (30), soft sell (20), hard sell (50).
We recommend sending the house to most of your potential recruits. This builds the most interest, and as we said with scholarships, you need to go all-in on players because other teams will too. Unless you have an abundance of unused hours, you should always try your best to get the player you’re investing hours in.
By this point, you’ll also need to monitor the interest board of each player. Look at how the rating changes from week to week. If you see yourself dropping on an interest board even after scholarships and sending the house, it might be best to cut your losses. The same applies to players who are gaining interest in you. Mark them as favourites to avoid losing sight of them. Removing players also refunds your hours.
Closing The Deal – Scheduling Visits
The final step of the recruitment process is scheduling a visit and committing a hard sell if necessary. Now, we know you’re tired of hearing this, but focus on your pipelines. Why? Pipeline talent not only gets you a bonus interest, but the visits are also cheaper. Visits are based on proximity, so the closer the player is, the fewer hours required for the visit.
Schedule visits over the remaining weeks to get a commitment out of them. Use the correct pitch to increase your chances of getting that player. While scheduling a visit, make sure it’s a game you’re bound to win. Basically, beating a harder opponent will impress the player, while losing to a lower-ranked team might lead you to getting locked out of their interest board.
Pitches
The last thing you need to know about is pitches. When using the Hard Sell option, there are 20 different pitches in the sell and 14 motivations. On the right side of each motivation is the school and coach’s grade, while on the left side is the player’s interest in that motivation. Each pitch has 3 motivations grouped, meaning you’re targeting those 3 motivations in your Hard Sell pitch. These are all 14 motivations:
- Academic Prestige
- Athletic Facilities
- Brand Exposure
- Campus Lifestyle
- Championship Contender
- Coach Prestige
- Coach Stability
- Conference Prestige
- Playing Style
- Playing Time
- Pro Potential
- Program Tradition
- Proximity to Home
- Stadium Atmosphere
To maximise your chances, you need to select a pitch that matches the player’s interests with motivations you have a high grade in. For example, you have A’s in Academic Prestige, Brand Exposure, Coach Prestige, Playing Time, and Playing Style. Look at the interests of the player (marked by a check mark or cross sign) and pick the pitch that has both, player’s interest and an acceptable coach grade.
Doing this maximizes the effect of your pitch and significantly increases the chances of that player signing with you. After this, you’ll just need to monitor the board and keep an eye on competitors as the season progresses. That’s all you need to know for recruiting in CFB 26; this guide should serve as a good base for all your recruiting needs.
