A college lacrosse recruiting simulator with real stakes

Recruiting runs on a calendar. Showcase season is for casting a wide net and discovering names; school ball is for sharpening your read on the kids you know; workouts and visits lock in your top targets. Prospects climb a visibility ladder — Unknown, Known, Watched, Scouted, Evaluated — so you actually know what you’re buying. Meanwhile your recruiting points bank up weekly, you allocate them across your board, you spend up to three official visits, and once a year Signing Day resolves everything at once.

The talent pool is a pyramid skewed toward 1★–3★ kids, and the stars price themselves: a 1★ demands about 3 effort, a 3★ about 6, a 5★ a full 13. On top of that sits a realism cap — your division, the recruit’s stars, and his fit set a hard ceiling on your odds. Division I can chase anyone; a Division III program essentially cannot buy a blue-chipper, no matter how many points it pours in. The cap is what makes the rare heist feel earned instead of bought.

Good scouting occasionally turns up a hidden gem — a low-star prospect with a sky-high ceiling that only you know about. And when Signing Day comes, it arrives as a show: locks first, then leans, toss-ups, the heartbreaks, and finally the steals nobody gave you a shot at. The game then names your class for what it is — Defense-first class, Local pipeline, Program-changer — and every recruit card can tell you why your staff liked him, why he might have said no, and where you first found him. Lose a kid, and when his school shows up on your schedule, the game remembers. For the working how-to, see the recruiting guide; for everything around it, the features tour.