The main reasons that I'm considering this are these:
Selfish reason:
I will lose at least two (likely to be 3 or 4) guys that started all season as true freshman. All of which are likely to transfer to Divisional rival Northern Illinois. All of the promises made were fulfilled and then some. That's not part of the game. That's not even remotely realistic.
Unselfish reasons:
1) I am not the only one that may lose multiple impact players with no chance of talking them into staying. In season one, I was the only one to lose any players, and all those players situations were fairly realisitic. The two that went pro had great seasons, and the one that transferred was buried on the depth chart. That made doing this entirely unnecessary.
2) With the exception of Piney, no one has done particularly well with recruiting this season, and the exodus of impact players will greatly effect the overall competitiveness of everyone's teams.
3) Once I found out that 'mania was going to get back online I was going to wait to start recruiting anyway. The extra work is work that would be on me to take care of in the time that we were going to be down anyway.