Date: Tue May 6 12:44:42 2008
Sender: Chris Oaks
...for a 35-yard TD, even. Nice moves, Hawkins.
First down, 10 yards to go, ball is at Miami OH 35, 5:36 remaining.
Offense: 220 Shotgun-Wishbone, no TE, WR screen
Defense: 4 Tight 3-4, 2-zone coverage, pass stunt
Kercheval (OLB), Brito (ILB) blitzing
Urry (DT ) drops into coverage.
Isber (QB) under medium pressure.
Isber throws -2 yards to WR Hawkins (#1 screen, wide open).
Coverage: Sutera (CB )
Pass easily caught by Hawkins.
Sutera (CB ) partially blocked by Mocellin (OG ).
Hawkins slips past Sutera (CB ).
Hawkins runs past Edrich (SF ).
Hawkins slips past Moore (SF ).
Touchdown!
In fact, I ran a second time and got 11 yards out of it. Talk about unexpected
surprises.
Date: Tue May 6 14:26:00 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
I pretty much gave up running screens 2 seasons ago.
After today, I might just give up running plays at all. What a crock. We give
up 28 for 30 to a mediocre QB (with no dropped passes) after slowing down a
good one and picking him off twice.
Dumb as it is, and annoying as it is, it seems the only way to win in this game
is to pass and hope it doesn't get picked off.
Date: Tue May 6 18:15:20 2008
Sender: Loren Smith
I've been running WR screens for about 25 seasons...love 'em.
Don't think I've ever had one like that, though.
Date: Tue May 6 18:20:50 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
I think there are a lot of plays that you just have to run once in awhile to
keep the defense honest, despite them not working that great.
Date: Tue May 6 18:32:30 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
I'd rather run a play that works once in a while.
Date: Tue May 6 18:34:58 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
Feel free :) That's what makes this game great, there's no pre-figured out
formulas to mindlessly follow.
Date: Tue May 6 19:24:23 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
A very good coach once told me how much he hated running "misdirections"
but if didn't run any his rushing numbers would be worse in the 4th quarter.
He used to crunch numbers, so I believe him.
Date: Tue May 6 20:22:07 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Considering how my team can't even run against a team with a shitty defensive
line, I'm not about to start running plays I know won't work.
It's a weakness in the program if running plays that don't work makes plays
that do work more effective late in games. That just doesn't make any sense at
all. If anything, it should be the opposite, that runnign a play that works
enough times makes something that wouldn't work early more effective later.
But I've grown accustomed to this game not really reflecting reality.
Date: Tue May 6 20:39:59 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
that is one of the things I think is more realistic.
If you only run strong sweeps, don't do anything else... by the 2nd half your
opponent will stop them.
The same thing goes for misdirection. If the defense sees a few
misdirections they can't just bolt out of position to make the play.
Date: Tue May 6 20:40:15 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
that is one of the things I think is more realistic.
If you only run strong sweeps, don't do anything else... by the 2nd half your
opponent will stop them.
The same thing goes for misdirection. If the defense sees a few
misdirections they can't just bolt out of position to make the play.
Date: Wed May 7 08:13:30 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Holy freaking crap you're good at drawing your conclusion from thin air. Do you
practice this? You used to be somewhat interesting to converse with; now you're
just annoying because it doesn't matter what anyone else is talking about. It's
like you're having a conversation with yourself that the rest of us can see.
No one said anything about only running strong sweeps or only running anything
else. I said that a play that didn't work in the first half shouldn't make any
play better later because obviously the defense was on it and so won't need to
make any adjustment at all for it. What defensive coordinator would say "well
we stopped their misdirections really well in the first half, let's make an
adjustment so we can make sure we stop it in the 2nd?" How freaking stupid
would that be? But if you say that running unsuccessful misdirection plays
earlier will help later, that's what you're saying.
I've seen several teams that ran only sweeps that seemed just as effective with
them in the 4th quarter as the first. But then I got slowed down with a team
full of C rated defensive linemen and a C rated QB threw 2 incompletions out of
30. So what happens against my team may not be representative of what happens
against most.
Date: Wed May 7 10:18:11 2008
Sender: Loren Smith
Running the risk of getting into another debate with Morgan...
Real-life...
An NFL or successful college team will run a certain play a few times in the
first half, knowing that it likely would not work.
Second half comes along, the team runs a 'similar looking play'...the defense
reacts as if it was the same play as in the first half. The 'similar looking
play' is very effective because the defensive players are now out of position.
The most obvious play is frequently run in college... one of the WRs comes on
an end around. The QB could hand it to him, hand it to the fullback/tailback,
or keep it himself. If you don't hand it to the WR the first five times that
you run it and the defensive end and OLB 'learn' to aggressively crash down on
the running backs, the WR then takes the handoff for a big gain on the sixth
time.
Another great example are the Pittsburgh Steeler trap plays from the late 70's
or the Nebraska Cornhusker option plays from the 80's and 90's. There was not
a single "trap" play or a single "option" play...rather, there were numerous
variations that looked similar to keep the defense players off balance.
Date: Wed May 7 13:39:47 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
I think the only place you're wrong is where you say that they run them knowing
they won't work. Obviously, they're most effective if they do work and force
the defense to make adjustments.
If a team runs a trick play and it doesn't work, why is a defense in any way
affected by that? They're just going to do what they planned on doing anyway.
In your example on the WR, why would the OLB and DE crash down if they've had
no trouble stuffing it without crashing? Not to mention that you can't run an
end around in CCEL, much to my chagrin.
The trap and option for those teams you mentioned were practically offenses
unto themselves, especially Nebraska. They weren't trick plays at all, and
unusual was the day when they didn't work because they were so good. I'm not
sure those examples are all that applicable.
I'm pretty sure that very few RL football coaches are calling plays thinking
"this is a crap play that'll never work, but it'll help later." They're
thinking "if this works, it'll be great for setting up something else later."
Date: Wed May 7 16:00:28 2008
Sender: Doc Barnes
I tried using a WR screen in a couple of my packages. It's still there but I
dialed it down quite a bit. If I had the right guy for it I'd run it, but I
have only had that luxury once. It just isn't a consistently successful play
IMO.
I agree with mixing things up to keep defenses guessing, but I generally hate
running any kind of misdirection run. There's never a good group of blockers
ahead of you especially if you're going Lone TB.
Date: Wed May 7 17:01:41 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
Henry- Keefe Cullen told me that.
He is a better coach than you.
Date: Wed May 7 18:10:46 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I played MLB/NG in high school in a 5-2. In that defense I had middle
draw/screen responsibilty.
If you never ran a draw by 3rd Q, I could go full pass rush no
responsibility. If you ran just a handful of that stuff I had to check off. -
Same goes for DE's not overpursuing and getting buzzed by an end around.
I don't care how well you run a certain play, unless you are heads and
shoulders better than the other team, they will stop you if you don't mix it
up.
Date: Wed May 7 18:24:48 2008
Sender: Chris Oaks
"Henry- Keefe Cullen told me that.
He is a better coach than you."
LOL
Now that's a crackback. Simple, yet effective. Nicely done, AJ.
Date: Wed May 7 18:29:46 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I wasn't trying to be mean, but the guy put together the best rushing offenses
around.
If he said, running the misdirections/draws and such helps late in the game-
I'm gonna give it some street cred.
Date: Wed May 7 22:33:33 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Never coached against him, let alone with even talent. So it's impossible to
say if he's a better coach than me.
I still disagree with the premise. I don't care if Urban Meyer said it.
You're telling me that if the other team ran draws with you as the nose guard,
that even if they didn't work it would change your play? Why? If you stopped it
(talking about more than once, and more often than not), why would you have to
do anything different at all if you happened to see it again?
Date: Wed May 7 22:36:21 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
How long did it take Keefe Cullen to win a college championship and did he
start with a team that hadn't won a conference game in 5 seasons and had won 3
games total in the previous 3 seasons?
I know you thought you were being clever, but there's absolutely no way to
quantify if I'm a better coach than anyone that wasn't in the situation I was
when I took over the by god worst program in Tier I and then see where they
were in their first two years.
If you got all this great advice from Keefe Cullen and he's a better coach than
me, why aren't you any better than you are?
Date: Thu May 8 05:30:00 2008
Sender: Lord Bremen
Keefe Cullen (943-167-1 = 0.849)
Keefe Cullen (26/62 ssn = 0.419)
Don't go after Keefe. He's better than all of us.
Date: Thu May 8 05:50:41 2008
Sender: Chris Oaks
That was Cullen's pro record posted above. Here is his college record:
ccel year 35, Navy (11-1), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 36, Louisiana St (9-3), playoffs (1-0)
ccel year 37, Louisiana St (9-3), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 38, Louisiana St (10-2), playoffs (1-0)
ccel year 39, Louisiana St (10-2), playoffs (1-0)
ccel year 40, Louisiana St (8-4), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 41, Washington (9-3), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 42, Washington (11-1), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 43, Washington (11-1), playoffs (1-0)
ccel year 44, Washington (10-2), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 45, Washington (9-3), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 46, Washington (12-0), playoffs (1-0), champions
ccel year 47, Washington (11-1), playoffs (0-1)
ccel year 48, Washington (12-0), playoffs (1-0), champions
ccel year 49, Washington (11-1), playoffs (1-0)
College Football Lifetime Records: 153-27 overall, 7-8 playoffs, 2
championships
Date: Thu May 8 06:10:58 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Looks like he never had to build anything.
Bremen, I don't care about pro records. Pro is all about who you can fleece in
trades and stockpile talent. I've been there before...I didn't find it very
much fun, even though usually I was pretty good relative to the talent I had. I
just didn't find it fun to haggle with people all the time.
Date: Thu May 8 06:38:59 2008
Sender: Kevin Caery
Keefe didn't have to build up his college teams, but that's not why he had the
success he did. He was quite probably the best football coach ever in this
sim, pro or college, and no coach without a title at any level can reasonably
suggest otherwise.
Date: Thu May 8 08:10:54 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
Whatever Henry....
Pro is more fair when it comes to team building then the top heavy, walk on
favorable, luck fest that is college. Almost every league also has a trade
committee, that monitors trades.
and IFL is as fair as it can possibly be if you think you are such a good
coach.
And Caery certainly isn't is a Keefe fan, you only have to look through the
board archive to see that.
Date: Thu May 8 10:04:30 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
"Never coached against him, let alone with even talent. So it's impossible to
say if he's a better coach than me."
No, it isn't. He is.
Date: Thu May 8 10:37:48 2008
Sender: Loren Smith
Interesting how a conversation about WR screens turned into a conversation
about Keefe Cullen.
I ran two WR screens in my last game...one drew a pass intererence, the other
gained seven on a 2nd and 3.
Nothing spectacular; but, both ended up being positive plays for me.
Date: Thu May 8 11:54:08 2008
Sender: Gregor Ellis
Keefe is likely a better gameday coach than anyone in the game, past or
present. He did build his teams up with LSU being the lowest talented one to
start - it just isn't obvious as he was such a good gameday coach that he was
regularly able to overcome very large talent mis-matches against good coaches.
My experience is that the sim assumes sell-outs by defenders later in the game
if you don't run some mis-directions, draws, play-actions, and screens. In
factors into how much this affects the game results.
Date: Thu May 8 11:57:55 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Kevin and Kyle, do you find it in any way reasonable to compare someone with 2
years experience that started below the bottom of the barrel with someone with
many seasons experience that didn't? I don't. I never said I was better than
him, but it's impossible at this point in my opinion to say anything about
whether I'm better or worse than really any experienced coach. I think I've
done a lot with the very limited talent and recruiting currency I've had.
AJ, I only know my experience in the pro leagues I've been in. The trade
committees were typically castrated and ineffectual.
Loren, I completely agree. I never wanted this to become anything what it
became, but AJ's little game of gotcha hijacked the thread. I'll take your
input on your team's experience with screen plays at face value and appreciate
the info.
Date: Thu May 8 13:08:06 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
I think it's perfectly reasonable to examine your record and say you are not on
the level of the greatest coach in CCEL history, who also happens to be the
greatest and most successful at at least one other online sports sim game (and
possibly others, I don't know).
Date: Thu May 8 13:50:18 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
I should amend that to say DEL football history. His CCEL resume is great but
not the greatest.
Date: Thu May 8 14:42:28 2008
Sender: Joshua MacOscar
"You're telling me that if the other team ran draws with you as the nose guard,
that even if they didn't work it would change your play? Why? If you stopped it
(talking about more than once, and more often than not), why would you have to
do anything different at all if you happened to see it again?"
It would not change his play, but it would keep his focus on the draw. That
will be at the expense of stopping another play unless AJ is short for Joe
Greene. If the offense can get AJ thinking draw and holds his pass rush back
for a second, they get a benefit.
They don't run plays that they know won't work. They run safe plays that have a
lower success rate than their money plays, but will reveal things about the
defense. Running some misdirection early on against a team that stays in their
gaps might not work, but it shows them that you are willing to run
misdirection.
You know all of this.
Date: Thu May 8 16:20:33 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
This is sounding eerily like the Don Nehlen 3rd and 9 draw.
It may show you're willing to run it, but it also shows them they're more than
capable of stopping it.
I root for Jim Grobe, I've seen more than my share of misdirection. I've also
seen it not work.
As for the stuff with Keefe, I'll just leave it where it is. You can't compare
Joe Paterno to someone with two years at their school.
But before you banish me to the scrapheap, I'll put this forward.
Before I took over South Carolina, the school had lost 40 straight conference
games (4 conference wins in the 4 years before that). IRL, this has never
happened in the post WWII era.
In all games, S.C. was 5-53 in the last 5 seasons.
There are two stories IRL that compare to that: 1976-83 Northwestern, which
went 8-79 but did win one conference game and tie another, and 1985-89 Kansas
State, which went 4-50-1 with two conference wins.
Northwestern took until 1995 to put together a winning season. Bill Snyder took
over Kansas State in 1989 and used a ridiculously weak non-conference schedule
and top-heavy Big 8 to turn K-State around, achieving one winning season in the
first 4 before winning 9 in 1993, the first of 8 straight years of 9 or more
wins. Still, it took until 1998 until they won even a division of their
conference.
Snyder did a great job, but had a couple of advantages I don't. The first is
the conference schedule he played, which only had 12 ranked opponents in the
first 5 years (1-10-1 the record). I'm pretty sure I have more than 1 win over
a ranked opponent already. Another advantage Snyder had is the ability to
recruit scads of junior college players and players that academically could not
be admitted to most other schools. The academic eligibility component simply
doesn't exist in DEL (the converse is true for Northwestern, rebuilding that
IRL is probably much more difficult than rebuilding in CCEL). A final advantage
he had is the ability to run a legitimate QB-centric running offense, which you
just can't do in CCEL Tier I with any level of effectiveness.
Date: Thu May 8 16:51:23 2008
Sender: Kyle Mayhugh
It's not putting you on the scrapheap to say you are no Keefe Cullen (or, as I
first knew him, Prodigal). And if I had $100 for every person who made an
argument that they might be good at him at an online sim game, then completely
failed to ever approach his results or got schooled by him personally, then I
wouldn't even be looking for a job right now.
But technically, I guess I can't prove that you won't go on a Cullen-like run
at some time in the future. Point conceded.
Date: Thu May 8 17:07:17 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
Josh...
I'm not bragging, I was a decent pass rusher, got down the line quickly.
But if you've ever played football every position has responsibilities. Mine
were draw and middle screen. If you didn't run them by 2nd half I would be
able to cut loose. If you ran one or two a game, then I had to hold and do a
read.
It's not some mystical amazing thing, it's standard football.
If you played beyond 5th grade you should understand this.
---------------------------
as for advice on these boards, I'm thinking I'm done with it. I have emails
from you Henry when you first started where I shared my thoughts and
experiences on things-
but now if people are going to be in my opinion "penises" about it- screw
it.
I've never won a college championship, but I have taken 2 different tier 1
teams from 10+ consecutive 3 win seasons or less to 10 wins- since people are
bragging about re-building.
Date: Thu May 8 17:17:07 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
I'm not even going to bother to go through the records to corroborate that
claim. Considering we only have records for like 30 seasons, that's a very
weighty claim indeed.
I'm not satisfied with where I am at this point in my career, but I can't
complain too much about it really. It's probably better than most expected.
Date: Thu May 8 19:08:50 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I don't think most people follow your career, they are probably too involved in
there own and like 100 other coaches.
Date: Thu May 8 19:28:53 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
A lot of people seemed to go out of their way to when I was at LaSalle and
North Texas. Out of their way to say that I couldn't win in Tier I.
Date: Thu May 8 20:05:21 2008
Sender: Lord Bremen
By the way, I run screens all the time with quite a bit of success. I've given
up on reverses, but screens will quite often bring in 8-10 yards.
Date: Thu May 8 21:03:55 2008
Sender: Loren Smith
"A lot of people seemed to go out of their way to when I was at LaSalle and
North Texas. Out of their way to say that I couldn't win in Tier I."
I'm not sure that people went out of their way. I think it is more that you
post a lot of controversial statements that people can't help but respond to.
I know I posted suggestions to your early frustrations and was shot down...so
ended up feeling much like Perko expressed earlier in the chain. I've
commended you for the time and effort that you've put into this game; but, you
just have to dial it back once in a while and acknowledge that there really are
a lot of really smart people playing the sim. Maybe their experience is
something to learn from.
Date: Fri May 9 03:23:29 2008
Sender: Henry Morgan
Fair criticism, Loren.
Pretty much all I've got. Sometimes I agree with people in their critiques,
sometimes, and sometimes I think they're generally right but that they just
don't think the same way I am with the team I have.
Date: Sat May 10 15:13:18 2008
Sender: Neal McDonald
O.K. that's it: I'm going to try some screens!
Please don't warn Coach Chick?
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