by emperorsnapper » Thu Dec 31, 2020 6:02 pm
After playing for about a week, I have discovered the key to playcalling. Unfortunately, the answer is, in short, that things that work work far too well, and it bears little resemblance to anything you might find in the real world.
First, offense: it is way, way too easy to move the ball in this game. I recommend throwing out of a Spread formation, and sticking to short passes - you will get plenty of big plays, and throwing deep is just asking to be continually sacked unless you are playing with a team that has an elite O-line. Running the football - outside runs (sweeps and sprints) work really, really well from 2nd down on, especially 2nd/3rd and long. On 1st down, stick to inside runs, and it is best to run them from tight, blocker heavy formations. Off tackle from a heavy jumbo set is like a super power, as my 90%+ conversion rate on 4th downs will attest. The biggest problem with running, particularly from the Spread, is that occasionally your QB goes insane, throws out the play, and decides to run a QB keeper that is usually very ineffective - he drops back 10 yards, waits a while to make sure the entire defense is surrounding him, then makes a weak attempt at running forward. You just live with these and hope the next one is actually handed off.
Defense is another matter entirely. I tried everything, and my defense was always as tough as a wet paper towel. Stopping the run is tough, and dropping even 8 guys into coverage has little effect. An effective pass rush seems impossible when running sane defense (3 to 5 man rushes) Finally, I figured out the key --- blitz. Blitz like blitzing is your oxygen. Blitz like the wind.
In my 2nd season, my team (Cincinnati) was 6-0 thanks to an insane offense scoring well over 60 a game, but I was annoyed by the poor defense, that gave up 34+ points in 3 of the first 6 games and had just 7 sacks, despite two talented DE and a solid LB core. Out of frustration, I created my own defensive play, called "F You". It involved all 11 players blitzing out of a 3-3-5 wide formation. It was a stupid, stupid play. In my next game, I ran it exclusively against Tulane. Every. single. play.
We won 73-10, and had 14 QB sacks. The Tulane running game was swamped, and on the rare occasion they got a pass off over my blitz, my DBs were actually able to RECOVER and MAKE TACKLES DOWNFIELD. This is, of course, insane, but Tulane did not have a good team at all. Prior to my next game, I created some more plays - 6, 7, and 8 man pass rushes out of the 3-4, 4-3, and 3-3-5 alignments. For the 3-3-5, I created 2 8-man rushes - one where the safeties blitzed along with the LB, and another where the corners blitzed. In all cases, the remaining 3-5 defenders were assigned to play man defense on eligible receivers.
These defenses worked insanely well. After 6 games, my defense ranked in the mid-40s. By the end of the season, we led the nation in scoring defense, passing defense, rushing defense, and (of course) total defense. We gave up 21 to UCF but held everyone else to 14 or less, including a 70-10 win over Clemson in the semifinals and a 56-14 thrashing of Ohio State, undefeated and #1, in the Championship game. The Clemson beating was so bad that their run defense dropped from #1 to #5 in the country as we ran up over 400 yards on the ground. I mostly used 8-man pass rushes against these teams, scaling down to 6 if it was a 3rd and long and I wanted to avoid a big passing play.
My team led the nation in sacks, and my two OLB tied for the lead with 14 a piece. My backup RB led the nation in rushing yards (he got more carries because the starter would get benched with the huge leads). The started ran for over 2,000 yards, more than any player on any other team in 2 seasons, and had to settle for 2nd place on his own squad. We had 6 All-Americans and won the offensive and defensive POTY awards, RB of the year, QB of the year, etc. The team scored over 1200 points in 15 games, and allowed 230.
The thing is, players dropped into coverage are just amazingly ineffective. They are terrible at run support and aside from the occasional INT do nothing to inhibit the passing game. The best strategy is to try to match up man-to-man with some receivers and give the QB no time to throw. Standard pass rushes can be blocked almost indefinitely - I have watched a 4-man rush spend 15-20 seconds unable to get to the QB. An overwhelming blitz leaves unblocked players and results in either a sack or a rushed throw, which are rarely effective unless they hit the undefended WR (even then, there is usually a DB on that side of the field who slides over to make the tackle). Completion percentages only increased slightly against this defense, there were actually fewer big plays, and 10-15 sacks a game just ruined opposing offenses. INT basically stopped, as passes were always thrown either into single coverage or to an open receiver, but I will trade 1 INT a game for a dozen sacks any time.
When you build a big lead, the opposing offense will often go into a possession or two of "god mode", where suddenly the RB can break almost any tackle and the QB has perfect accuracy. Against any normal defense, these are 100% TD drives. Max blitzing, however, can create enough negative plays to hold these possessions to FG, and occasionally even punts.
Another interesting point: my team prestige started at 78. After going 14-1, then 15-0 in the most dominant season in football history, and winning two national titles, my team prestige was still 78.