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One of the fantasies sports video games let us live out is that of the star player, dominating on the field and living a life of luxury off of it. In the world of college football, however, it can be even more exciting to take over as a coach, turning a small program into a juggernaut or winning multiple championships with an established contender.
College Football 26’s Dynasty mode lets you tackle this challenge headfirst. The road to sports immortality will require surrounding yourself with the right pieces, so hit the recruiting trail with a vengeance. Here’s how to land all your favorite prospects.
How To Pick Your School
If you want a leg up when recruiting top prospects, you’ll want tostart at a prestigious program. Look for thenationally ranked schools(they’ll have a number next to their logo) andexamine their star rankings.
Powerful teams willattractmany of the best players, who look to win championships, build their personal brands, and develop into future NFL stars.
Coach Backstories, Explained
Before you begin your dynasty, you mustdecide what kind of coach you want to be. you’re able to take over an existing coach’s career, orcreate your own.
If you decide to make a new coach, you’ll be given achoice between three different backstories:Motivator, Recruiter, and Tactician.
All have their own strengths and weaknesses, butRecruiterwill be thebest one for pursuing top players. You’ll receive abuff to scoutingthat allows you tobetter evaluate prospects, and you’ll land more due toincreased persuasiveness.
Another part of coach creation you’ll need to consider isyour pipeline. This is thearea of the country you will be focused on, and you’ll begiven a recruiting boostwhenever you speak to players from that region.
Thebest pipelines will generally be located in the southern United States (Texas and Florida, especially), although California and the East Coast are also worth investigating.
It may be worth picking a pipeline geographically close to your school, since you’ll be able to satisfy local talent that wants to stay close to home.
How To Add Prospects To Your Board
You’ll get access to your recruiting menuas soon as you begin Dynasty. You canview your team’s needsabove the prospect list, giving you some insight intohow many players you needto add to your team.Add your desired targetsto your recruiting board (you canhave up to 35) and begin pursuing them.
We recommend filtering players by Top Prospects (Right Trigger), then by any position group you need to fill (Left Trigger). From here, sort by Interest to see if any players already have your program in their sights.
How To Recruit Prospects
Once you have set up your board, you have a few options. In the top right,you’ll find your Hours, which you can spend in different ways. Scouting willgradually reveal a prospect’s ratings, allowing you togauge whether they are worth your time.
Some may reveal a gem icon. This symbolizes that their stats are beyond what their initial star rating suggests, making them an incredibly valuable addition to your squad.
You can alsobegin wooing prospectsthrough a variety of actions, such asinteracting with them on social media, reaching out to their family, or pulling out all the stops by sending the house. You’re only able tospend 50 hours on a prospect per week, but using these tactics is essential tostaying in their good gracesas the weeks tick by.
It’s really important to give attention to your favorite players, since you can be completely locked out of signing them if you don’t make it into their top eight, top five, and eventually top three schools.
Scholarships are another great way to show a prospect you mean business. Youonly get to hand out 35 a year, and they function asan official offer from your university.
Selling Your School And Scheduling Visits, Explained
As the weeks progress, athletes will eventuallysettle on their top five universities. At this point, you can begin using more advanced methods of persuasion, giving a recruita soft or hard sell to gain large influence boosts. These require you topick the correct sales pitchto be successful;choose the one that aligns with their motivationsfor the best results.
Soft sells are better when you don’t know all of a player’s interests, since the penalty for being wrong is less severe than a hard sell.
You can alsoattempt to sway a playerif you know some of their motivations. This lets youapproach the recruit with a pitch, and potentiallyconvince them to value the corresponding aspectsof your school more.
Success is dependent on whatmotivations of theirs you have already revealed, and choosing a pitch that aligns with a few of them willincrease your chances of the sway working. If it goes through, you can thenhard sell that specific pitch in the following weeksfor a better influence gain.
Finally, you canbegin scheduling school visitswith your prospects. These visits willcoincide with some of your games, and you’re able to only assigna few visits to each date.
Be mindful of which players you have coming to each game, sincecomplementary visits will boost influence, andscheduling prospects competing for the same job may hurt it. You’ll alsoselect an activity for each player to do, based on their motivations.
Do not attempt to sell, sway, or schedule a visit with a player too early. You learn more about their motivations as the weeks progress, and you want to pick a sales pitch or activity that matches them. Trying to engage with a prospect before all their motivations are laid bare can be risky and will potentially ruin your chances of landing them.
How To Use The Transfer Portal
The transfer portal has becomean integral part of the college football landscape, and thus its inclusion in Dynasty mode is a no-brainer. You’llget access to it once you reach the offseason, where again you may add players to your recruiting board, although this time, they’ll beother college athletes.
Recruitingworks the same as it does for high school prospects, though on amuch more condensed timeline. It’s encouraged tobe aggressive, sosend the houseon any four or five-star athletes you need added to your team, andthen begin the pitching process. After a few short weeks, you’ll havea host of new players for your squad.
