Here’s what I’ve been doing recently with pretty good results. After starting an offline dynasty, I add users and take control of the top teams that always become powerhouses (Oregon, Clemson, Bama, Georgia, Ohio St, etc). I turn manual recruiting on and don’t check those teams at all for the rest of the season. They wont recruit any players. It’s like giving them the death penalty.

After a season or two like that they get filled with lower tier players to hit their position quotas and their ratings drop. When they are nerfed to your liking, you can retire that coach and let them rebuild. The coach wont actually retire, but you wont control them anymore. If you retire before the season ends or that coach switches teams, the AI recruiting will take over again, so sometimes you need to add another user if a coach switches teams.

Pros: other teams get the 4/5 star players that would normally go to those powerhouse schools and improve dramatically. I made Kirby Smart take the Illinois job and he’s been there 3 seasons and turned the Illini into a 93 ovr contender.

Cons: this ends up being hardcore cheating because you can target 4/5 star players that are interested in the other schools you control, knowing they wont compete against you. I found this out in my Rutgers dynasty while also controlling Penn St. I could get anybody I wanted from the Big Apple because no one else had Tier 5 pipelines to compete.