View our updated CFB 26 Margin Of Victory post.
Today we are looking into how margin of victory impacts recruiting during the week a player comes on a visit.
The game will sometimes tell us that we received a boost from a blowout victory but beyond that, we are left to wonder how exactly the influence gain is calculated.
Methodology
We simmed 100 games with recruits coming for visits and logged the results. We recorded visit grade, win/loss bonus (green arrows up or red arrows down), winning score, losing score, point differential, beginning recruit influence, and ending recruit influence.
The technique we used to come up with recruit influence is simple but does take a bit of explaining.
First, and most importantly, this technique only works accurately on recruits who have our team first on their recruiting list. Otherwise, the recruitment bar is too hard to properly measure.
Once we make sure we are first on a recruit’s board, we then take the top recruiting bar and convert how full it is into a number.
There are different ways to do this but our quick and easy solution was to take screenshots where the entire recruiting bar (highlighted in red below) totals 1000 pixels wide.
The screenshot itself is bigger than 1000 pixels but the recruiting bar in our original image is exactly 1000 pixels.
At that point we then measure how full the bar is that the recruit started with (solid color) and the width of how much a recruit gained in the week after the visit (lighter color) to get the numbers we need.
So in the image above this recruit started with 448/1000 pixels filled and after his visit he ended with 661/1000 pixels filled. So we know the visit impact was 213 pixels or 21.3% of the recruiting influence bar.
We used this technique on every recruit on every visit to convert their influence bar into a number.
Note: It is unwise to try to extrapolate this more broadly than we are doing here because there are a bunch of other variables that impact how much influence a recruit gains after a visit. That’s a much more in-depth topic and one we’ll save for a different day.
This technique works for what we need because we are able to hold all those other variables constant by creating a manual save point, backing out, and re-loading over and over.
Findings
Losing A Game During A Visit
The first thing to get out of the way is if you lose, your visit was useless. You will not gain influence on any recruit visiting during a game you lose.
It doesn’t matter if the game shows 4 red arrows down (losing to a really bad team) or 0 red arrows down (losing to a really good team).
It also doesn’t matter if you lose in a close game or in a blowout. A loss is a loss and you gain no influence. Technically, you don’t lose ground on the recruit though, you just wasted 40 hours of recruiting time.
Winning A Game During A Visit
There are 3 different categories a win can fall into:
- Blowout Win (Margin Of Victory: 15+ points)
- Clear Win (Margin Of Victory: 8-14 points)
- Close Win (Margin Of Victory:1-7 points)
All else being equal a blowout win gives you the biggest influence boost, a clear win the second biggest, and a close win the smallest.
Don’t overcomplicate this. As far as the game is concerned, a 45-38 shootout is the same to a visiting quarterback as a 10-3 defensive battle.
Position doesn’t matter, points scored doesn’t matter, expected outcome doesn’t matter. All that matters is if you won and by how much.
Examples
We schedule this recruit (named Steve Draft) for a visit keeping the week of the game, the visit activity, and everything else constant.
We recorded where his influence bar started and then where it ended based on the results of the game. The screenshot above shows where this recruit starts.
Using the techinque we went over earlier we are able to record that this recruit’s starting influence number is 499/1000.
After a close win (0-7 points) his influence bar went up to 678/1000 or an increase of 179/1000.
After a clear win (8-14 points) his influence bar went up to 736/1000 or an increase of 237/1000.
After a blowout win (15+ points) his influence bar went up to 765/1000 or an increase of 266/1000.
Here is a summary of the results for this recruit based on game outcome:
- Any Loss: 0 point increase
- Close Win: 179 point increase
- Clear Win: 237 point increase
- Blowout Win: 266 point increase
The recruiting point values will be different for each recruit based on starting interest, activity grade, whether or not you are playing a rival, how good the team is you beat, and whether or not you have complimentary or competitive visits scheduled that week.
So again, avoid the temptation to extrapolate this data further than it is meant to be. I’ve seen recruits gain as much as 500 points between weeks and as low as 100.
That being said, one thing that does jump out from our data is a consistent theme where a blowout win (15+ points) results in somewhere around a 40-50% boost in recruit influence gain over a close win (1-7 points).
So if you find yourself up 7 points at the end of a game, it may make sense to score that extra touchdown (and 2 point conversion) instead of running out the clock.
Key Takeaways
- Every loss counts the same (no influence gain)
- Wins are grouped into 3 win categories (Close, Clear, Blowout)
- Blowouts can result in much more influence gain than close games
Bonus Finding
Surprisingly enough, just like our research for regular (non-sell) recruiting actions, pipelines do not have any impact on visits.
A recruit with a level 5 pipeline and a recruit with no pipeline whatsoever will get the same post-visit recruiting gain holding all other variables constant.
Next up: Check out our CFB 25 Recruiting Insight Engine or Hard Sell Calculator.
