Math Is Fun Forum

Not right on the cars problem.  Divide 50 by 150 (50/150).

YES!!  YES!!!!  You are exactly on track with the stock market example.

How it works is like this.....  the Max players you can have is 50.  I have a set number of players that I put at every position.  ie 2 QBs, 6 RB's, 5 WR's.  So, when recruiting, I know pretty solidly what I need and how many.  The only exception is like if I had 5 RB's, and say a REALLY good QB was available close to me, I'd get by with only 5 RB's till next recruiting season, and take the QB to keep him from the schools in my area.  So, I definitely will be setting position numbers that I need to fill.  Also, you are correct, recruiting is incremental.  It happens in cycles.  Every three hours is a web update.  You have 3 hours to make your recruiting moves, then another update happens.  This goes on for 2 days without the recruit being able to sign.  During this time you get a status update like, Recruit is Considering us only, Recruit is Considering Us Among Others, Recruit is Undecided.  Undecided means you haven't even got on his radar with the money you have spent, Us among others means you and other coaches all have his attention (a bidding war), Us Only means he's decided for the time being that he wants to sign with you unless another school comes in and outspends you enough to pull that status back down to Us Among Others.  That make sense?  After two days, recruits can sign with you.  If your status with them is Considering Us Only, then they will sig as soon as signing becomes available.  If you and another coach are still on his radar, then it's either a continued bidding war, or someone gives up and after an undetermined amount of time, the recruit will sign with whoever was ahead.  This signing period goes on for about 5 days.  Only thing of note here, and I seriously doubt you can predict this or really protect against it, is the cycle that signing first starts, some rich coaches can swoop in, drop an exorbitant amount of cash on a recruit that you are in the green on, pushing you out of the way, them into the green, and the recruit signs with them the first cycle of signings.  I've played about 7 total seasons now, and this has not happened to me or anyone I know, but it does happen and is a possibility.

I'm trying to Maximize talent, and Minimize cost.  What ever cash I have left over after recruiting, I get to carry on to next recruiting season.  So although it's not necessary, building up a bank roll over seasons can be very advantageous.  I value all positions pretty equally.  With 228 human owned coaches, every last player becomes integral, and player talent is key to this game.  It's about 95% recruiting, and 5% gameplanning.  Alot like real NCAA football, LOL  The penalty for running out of cash is that you get a walkon player that is utterly the bottom of the barrel talentwise.  Walkons are a very hurtful thing.  It's preached in the strategy discussions that walkons are the absolute worst thing that can happen to you, to be avoided at all costs.

On another note about how incremental the spending is.  If I see a middle of the road type player, I'm not going to open my spending on him with alot of cash.  I don't want to spend alot on him when I'm not in love with him, only to find someone that is truly in love with him outspend me.  I'd rather drop a little, if someone else gets on him, move to a darn near equal talentwise player.  Now, if theres a REALLY good player, and I expect alot of interest, I'm very willing to drop my whole max on him in one round in an attempt to discourage other coaches.  Like, there's been times when I spent and spent on a guy, never getting on his radar at all.  Some other coach dropped alot more than I was willing to drop on him.  Hope that makes sense.

Hey man, it really sounds like you're starting to understand what I'm after and might even have a better idea of how to go about it.  Sorry if my descriptions haven't been very good.  As you can imagine, the spreadsheet is very complicated, and I just didn't really know where to start in describing what I was doing!  Once again, I really appreciate the time and effort you've given me with this.

Hey man, I REALLY appreciate the detailed response like that!

Yeah, I think the gradient is what I had in mind, but you bring up a couple good ideas at how to approach this.  The probability way of looking at it is interesting, but I'm pretty sure I've got the probability locked in pretty good.  The hard dollar amount that the spreadsheet is now generating, is an estimated "most I'd have to spend" figure.  If I spent over that amount, I'd bail on the recruit anyway.  The money you spend recruiting is incremental anyway.  For instance, I might open with a Head Coach visit, and an Assistant Coach Visit, totaling around 1,000 dollars.  Well, if at that point another coach jumps on the recruit harder than me, I can choose not to spend any more money and pursue a different recruit.  That other coach may be closer to the recruit, have more recruiting cash, have more prestige, and I may back out for any of those reasons.

The way I'm envisioning this to work, at that point, I could update my available cash and have an idea of who to pursue next.  In that case, I have not spent anywhere my estimated cost, and I can remove that recruit from the spreadsheet.  So, I think you are thinking of ALL the factors that go into recruiting, when I am actually not trying to quantify every action.  Does that make sense?  I still want the system to be flexible so that I can control it.  But when I have 15-20 recruits to pursue, I need help keeping track of who is best to pursue for what cash I have available.  I'm trying to redshirt my guys around to prevent those big recruiting classes, but that takes time!

So, thanks a ton man.  You've helped alot.  If you have any ideas where to go from here, that would be great!  I think the optimization of the sets is where I need to go, and I have like no calculus training to speak of.

If you'd like more detail on how I am assigning cost estimates or talent ratings, I'd be more than happy to go into that level of detail if it would help.  I can even send you the spreadsheet as it stands, or send you a cut and paste of part of it so you can see what I have working so far, and what I'm working with overall.  I'm just happy that someone is willing to help me!

I appreciate your help.  I don't mean to sound rude at all, honestly, but about 99% of what you suggested is already included in the fuzzy logic generated talent rating.  The cost issues have all been addressed in a fuzzy logic generated cost rating.  Those two ratings have been logically "AND"ed together to produce the final talent/cost rating.  I have a series of sets, ({talent/cost},{estimated total cost}), and a cash limit number.  I need to maximize the series sets with the cash limit number.  I don't think it's any more difficult than working with 3 numbers.  I seem to remember something similar in calculus way back in the day when I last attempted college calc.  I may be completely wrong.  I just don't know.  I'm looking for some help.