College Football 26 is here, and Dynasty is the centerpiece of the game. In the popular mode, you take a program and run it over multiple years, trying to build or maintain a college football powerhouse. While you can play the mode either online or solo, the secret to success is the same. The players who master recruiting will be the ones who lead dominant programs in the game.
Recruiting Can Be Complex
Many factors impact recruiting. Your school’s quality and prestige, past success, players’ wants, and your pipeline areas are just a few factors that affect your recruiting success. It’s not as simple as just loading up your recruiting board with 35 5-star players and getting as many of them as you can. Unless you’re Ohio State or Alabama—then it might be that easy. For most programs, though, it takes knowledge of the process and strategic action to win in recruiting.
Because recruiting is so complex, there are various approaches to doing it well. This guide will approach recruiting from the standpoint of a 3-star or less program, with a strategic approach that values quality over quantity. As always, though, you should take the approach that works best for you.
Know Your Program
If you’re trying to build Kent State, you can’t recruit like you’re Ohio State. Not successfully, anyway. There are multiple reasons for this, but the primary one is that recruiting hours vary significantly from 1-star programs to 5-star programs. A 0.5-star program will get 300 recruiting hours per week. A 5-star school, on the other hand, will get 1000. Because of this, you’ll need to be strategic about who you target and how you allocate your recruiting points.
The other key item is the pipeline. If a player is in your school’s pipeline, you’ll be able to win that player over much faster. Pipelines range from Tier 1 to Tier 5, with Tier 5 being the strongest. This is important to know because if you’re recruiting a player from a Tier 4 pipeline area and your competition for the player has the area as Tier 2, you will win the player over much faster. Some schools don’t have anything higher than a Tier-3 pipeline area. Some schools, like Clemson and other powers, have multiple Tier-5 states to recruit from.
Early in the process, you’ll need to consider these two factors carefully to achieve success.
Choose Your Targets
You can select up to 35 targets to initiate the recruitment process. Targets are one area where opinions on approach differ. Some people will tell you always to fill the recruiting board with 35 targets. If you’re trying to get a Top-5 recruiting class to upgrade a coach, then that’s good advice. When you’re just starting out with a low to mid-tier school, though, be more strategic.
Remember, your school will only get so many recruiting points each week based on it’s program prestige:
| Program Prestige (Stars) | Preseason Hours | Weekly Hours |
| 0.5 | 375 | 300 |
| 1 | 450 | 350 |
| 1.5 | 500 | 400 |
| 2 | 575 | 450 |
| 2.5 | 625 | 500 |
| 3 | 750 | 600 |
| 3.5 | 875 | 700 |
| 4 | 1000 | 800 |
| 4.5 | 1125 | 900 |
| 5 | 1250 | 1000 |
Don’t load up your board if you won’t have the points to spend. To find players that will make sense to recruit, always sort by pipeline. The pipeline is slightly overpowered, as a Tier-5 pipeline provides a substantial multiplier to recruiting efforts. Other tiers give multipliers too, increasing incrementally from Tier 1 to Tier 5.
First, sort by quality of player. Use the RT/R2 to open the dropdown and select 5-star recruits. Then, sort by pipeline status. If a player is that star quality and has a pipeline, see if they’re interested in your school. In the “INT” column, it will display a value between 1st and 10th. If it’s blank, don’t pursue the player. Chances are extremely low that you’ll get them. Then, repeat the process for 4-star, 3-star, and 2-star recruits (if desired).
The preseason is also when you should be scouting. Spend points on scouting in that phase. Offer scholarships if you can. Don’t worry if a player is revealed to be a bust; it’s early in your Dynasty, and you’re just trying to rack up good recruiting classes.
Spending Recruiting Points Early
Starting in Week 0, you can use the “Add Action” feature in recruiting. There, you can search social media, DM the player, contact friends and family, or send the house. Send the House is always the best option; it has the best return on investment by far. If you have 500 recruiting points to spend, it’s better to choose 10 good targets and send the house on them for the first few weeks than it is to spend 20-30 points on 15-20 recruits.
Once you’ve done that for a few weeks, you’ll know their motivations. Then, you can schedule a visit and choose a high-impact pitch to make when they’re in town. Visits cost fewer points for players closer to home, so players in your pipeline should be pretty cheap to bring into town. Also, you will gain more by beating a rival during a player’s visit. On the flip side, though, you’ll lose more ground with the recruit if you lose.
Soft And Hard Sell
When you know enough of the player’s motivations, switch from Send the House to Hard Sell. Select the pitch that aligns with their three selected motivations. If you don’t know all three yet, check their dealbreaker—that’s always one of their motivations.
Find the right one, and use Hard Sell. Since you already know what they want, you’ll make massive progress in the process. If they’re a pipeline player, you’ll earn even more progress. Soft Sell is lower risk in the event you want to guess at their motivations when you don’t know them all yet. It’s not always worth the risk, especially if you’re focusing on pipeline players.
Scheduling Visits
You can bring up to four players to visit your school each week that you’re at home. I wouldn’t recommend bringing them during a bye week unless you have to, as you won’t gain anything for a victory. Make sure you’ve used Hard Sell on them before they arrive and that their visit pitch is their highest motivation.
If you do it right, you’ll see players commit to your school after they visit almost every time you host players at your school.
What Shouldn’t You Use?
Use Soft Sell if you want to, but I’m not a huge fan of it. It’s mostly wasted recruiting points. Instead, I prefer investing in Send the House for 2-3 weeks and then switching to Hard Sell.
Also, you’ll only need to scout during the preseason portion of the schedule. Whether or not a player is a bust is mostly irrelevant in the first few years of your Dynasty. Once you’re more established and have grown your program a bit, then you’ll want to pay more attention to busts and diamonds. However, if you find that a premier prospect from a pipeline is a diamond, move them to the top of your recruiting board.
Published: Aug 4, 2025 04:25 pm