NCAA Football 11 Catch-All

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The great season bumped me up to 5* school status though, and improved my recruiting substantially in the first couple weeks of 2012 that I have started tonight. But losing my senior kicker and replacing him with the RS Fr 2* guy that I picked up has been really disappointing. Even turning up the user kickoff power to 100 I still can only kick to about the 8yd line with a 100% strong kick and no wind.

Remember that punters and kickers are nearly interchangeable. I'll often just use the same guy at both positions, if he's good.

Oh, and it took me until my second undefeated season with Louisville to get invited to the National Championship!

So, while it took me two undefeated seasons in my Louisville dynasty to get to the National Championship game, I managed to do so in my first undefeated season as Northern Illinois. I just finished my fourth (third?) season in that dynasty. I didn't actually have any plans to break into the top 20, as I've had a bit of a rebuilding period. However, I have a good running game with a nice scrambling sophomore QB, and I have a good defense.

I ran through the MAC undefeated. My out of conference games were Duke and Louisville at the beginning of the season, and a 2 loss Northwestern ranked #22 at the end of the season. I barely beat Northwestern and barely beat Temple in the MAC championship game, but somehow ended the season ranked #2 at 13-0. I didn't belong there with only a C- strength of schedule.

I played Miami in the National Championship. I went up 14-0 and looked really good. Then my weaknesses from earlier in the season crept up on me. My lead HB fumbles a lot and doesn't have enough stamina to play much in the second half. That's fine because his back-up is really good, but he fumbles and can't catch. I think all year my completion percentage on screen passes is probably 25%, and it's only that high if you count balls that hit the players in the hands. Then you consider my WRs and TEs. They can't catch. Period. Many have <50 ratings in catching. The only chance you have they'll catch a ball is that they are completely blanketed and pull off a 'spectacular catch.'

In the end I was close. I lost the game 38-31, but one of those TDs was a 15 yarder as time expired. I had several chances late. On a 3rd-and-goal from the 8 with about 2:30 left, my QB threw a perfect pass to a wide-open receiver...who dropped it, of course.

Nonetheless, this was a rebuilding year. Next year I'll have a lot more depth. I've managed to build my team from 2* prestige to 4* prestige. I would have lost any major bowl game this year, but there's always next year...

One last thing: there was some discussion about awards, promises, and such. I managed to have a CB and my 2*-rated kicker on the Freshman All American team! The key with the kicker was to get someone who had a lot of power, though not much accuracy. I play the kicking game well enough that he was able to hit some good range FGs and his punts were boomers. I aimed 'em high rather than trying to be directional. They floated so much that I got two fair catch interference calls on me in the MAC championship games. I never suspected my guys would be able to get that close to the returner!

I scheduled Alabama for season 3, thinking if no one in the damn SEC could beat them then I'd just have to do it. And then of course LSU goes and beats them, so I have a 1-loss #12 team coming to Papa John's instead of the #1 undefeated team I expected.

And on the first play from scrimmage they broke for an 80 yd TD pass. And I was starting to question my scheduling.

I settled in for a nice 3 minute drive. But I got stopped in the red zone on 3rd and 1, so had to settle for a FG. My defense held with a 3 and out, after they kept trying to run up the middle. My next drive led into the 2nd quarter and I finished it off with a 6yd TD run this time to go up 10-7.

Then all hell broke loose.

1st down after the kickoff, they fumbled. I went for the jugular on a WR post out to the back corner of the endzone for 22 yds. 17-7.

Then on 2nd and 8, my All-American safety Dorsey INTERCEPTED AN OPTION PITCH from the QB to RB, and ran it in for 6. It was the greatest football play I've ever seen. 24-7

Alabama ran for a first down. Then I held them on their next set of downs. I made a steady drive to score again with 1 min left in the 2nd, 31-7.

Then they fumbled the kickoff return. So I threw a pass to the 5, and then punched it in on the next play. 38-7. 35 points in the 2nd quarter. Game over.

Scoreless 3rd, then I ran one in. They tacked on a meaningless TD after, and while I was running to kill clock after the onside I stumbled into the endzone again. 52-14 final. Maybe it's time sliders/difficulty. But hell, any team with 4 fumbles lost and no TOs for the other team is going to lose, badly. I only outgained them by 100 in total offense, and with kick returns of course they outgained me on total yards. Turnovers win ballgames.

3 fumbles and 35 points, all in about 4 minutes of the 2nd quarter. Roll Tide?

Stele wrote:

Then on 2nd and 8, my All-American safety Dorsey INTERCEPTED AN OPTION PITCH from the QB to RB, and ran it in for 6. It was the greatest football play I've ever seen. 24-7

I thin the intercepted options are kind of glitch in the game. I'm pretty sure most of us have had more than out share. I wish the game at least just coded them to be fumbles and force the guy to pick the ball up. It's too easy to turn a few of those in a game against a team that runs a lot of options. It took a hell of a lot of practice in runnng the triple option to not have several in game intercepted.

Actually those still happen to me with alarming frequency because I run the option formation at times. It does feel a bit glitchy. I feel like this is a similar depth issue like the linebackers batting down 30 yard throws. The game isn't accounting for depth properly. If I'm running the option in real life the running back keeps spacing behind me such that if I the defense does indeed bite and I pitch the ball there is very little chance a defender closing the gap from me to the line between the ball and the running back. It just doesn't physically happen because the defender really isn't that close.

Oh well. I love the game, but there are things like that and the linebacker issue that still bug me.

DSGamer wrote:

Actually those still happen to me with alarming frequency because I run the option formation at times. It does feel a bit glitchy.

The crux of the issue is that we are so focused on the ball carrier that we often do a poor job of reading where the pitch will go. Worse, often we can make insanely accurate and strong pitches while getting hammered, so there is this feeling that just taking the hit is bad, and out the ball goes. While I struggled to really nail the triple option down, I pretty much avoided most of the intercepted pitches after awhile. Mostly it took accepting that my QB was getting stuffed, and to just take the loss of yards or short gain.

But it can be pretty easy to shut down the CPU run game with blitzes, as the penetration disrupts it quite a bit. When we get that penetration on an option play, too often it is a pick six. I've run in a ton of TD's that way.

But it can be pretty easy to shut down the CPU run game with blitzes, as the penetration disrupts it quite a bit. When we get that penetration on an option play, too often it is a pick six. I've run in a ton of TD's that way.

How many intercepted option pitches have we seen in real college football? I'm not sure I've ever seen one, so I think DS is on the right track. To get the option to actually work for positive yards, they've done something funny with the way the RB is positioned, which gives the defense more of an opportunity to do this. However, some of it is also the logic in the QB of whether to throw the pitch or not. For human players it's sometimes a lack of feeling for the depth of the defensive players. I've thrown a few of these intercepted pitches. But I think the CPU throws more of them than the typical human player.

I think the fact that almost every one of those intercepted pitches is a TD is the real killer here.
However, the other thing is that some of those interceptions require the defender to lean back in an unrealistic way and catch the ball one handed. The defender has overrun the play, and those shouldn't be interceptions, but the game allows them to be for some reason.

Oh well. I love the game, but there are things like that and the linebacker issue that still bug me.

You know, I've seen a lot less of that in the 2* dynasty we're playing. I've not played NIU through four seasons of an offline dynasty, and the number of mile-high LB tipped passes just seems to be less than in the higher rankings. That's one advantage of playing through the MAC, I guess!

Non-AQ linebackers generally don't have 80" verticals.

Anybody ever give Road To Glory mode a try?

I created a RB a couple weeks back and just dabbled with it here and there. The high school playoff stuff was a laugh, but I guess it was supposed to be. I broke a lot of 50-ish yard TD runs and crushed our opponents, got to be a 5* recruit pretty easily.

Then I only had two ranked schools that were offering me the starting job: LSU and UNC. So I went with UNC. Apparently the practice during the week is only for guys who don't have the starting job, so there is no reason for me to do that, which saved a lot of time. And of course the game simulates play you are not in if you want, so playing through games is pretty quick. Went through two seasons already without much trouble. I did restart one game where I was up 21-0 at half, and the coach called a bunch of pass plays instead of letting me run the clock as RB and blew our lead with some fumbles and INTs. I figure I'm only playing RTG once and I want to win all the games and try to set school/NCC records or whatever for the trophies.

It's pretty fun playing with a player lock, running pass routes or pass blocking, definitely a different game. But it's horribly frustrating at other times. Problem with UNC is a good QB or pass-heavy offense, one way or the other. In the 2nd season, I beat the UNC single season TD record of 19 with my 23. But the QB also beat the single season passing record yards by 70 or so. So I'm clearly not getting the ball enough. The coach will call lots of play action passes before I've ever had a single carry. Thought the point was to set up the run and then go for the pass? At least that's how it works in the main game, run a few runs out of the same formation and get a setup play. But the RTG coach is not smart enough to do that stuff. Also really frustrating is late game action. You can't change the gameplan strategy stuff, like conservative clock management, so you end up running plays when you should be kneeling. And then when the coach finally does call a kneel in the last minute, the QB will take the snap with 20-5 seconds still left on the play clock. And then line up super quick and do it again. So you can't actually kill the clock. A lot of times it ends up going from kneel to calling plays on 3rd down to try to get the 1st.

And one other major annoyance I found... the game lets me call the coin toss, decide kick/receive and all that. But it won't let me accept/decline penalties. No big deal, right? The AI should choose those correctly right? Nope. 4th and 3 on the 20 or so, we kick a field goal. The defense gets called for offsides. Yay, first down. Wait, what? The coach declines the penalty. No one would ever do that, unless it was like the last play of the game with no time on the clock. You would always take a fresh first down inside the 20 to try to put 7 on the board instead of 3.

So yeah basically my main problem is my coach is an idiot. I average 7.5 yards a carry for my 2-year career so far. And there are some games where I only get 10 carries. And probably half to 2/3 of the pass routes I get assigned are outs to the left or right where I am supposed to hang back 3-5 yards behind the line of scrimmage to catch the ball. No way in hell. The first few games, every one of those plays would end with me wide open, getting the pass and then getting hit for a loss. So I starting pushing the routes forward on my own, at least to the line, sometimes in front of it. Much better yards per catch now, and actually helping the team get first downs sometimes as a receiver.

I figure playing as the QB would be not different enough from dynasty, since you could basically audible and call whatever you wanted, and would still be doing handoffs or passes. But playing as the RB has been an exercise in frustration, with no control at all. As far as I can tell I can't even switch a run play from right to left or whatever. I've seen it change a couple times, but the times I tried to force it with the right stick it didn't seem to work. Hate when they call a sweep to the short side of the field when the ball is on the hash.

I guess it might be realistic the way it is, but I find it to be less than fun sometimes. I've had stretches where I've seen the coach call 8-10 pass plays in a row, with me on the field for every one, blocking for half of them, and running short routes on the rest. For a two-time all american, impact player, 2-time trophy winner, 7.5 yd per carry RB, that just seems ludicrous. Maybe they should implement a choice of 2 plays or something when you get in the game. At least then I'd have some kind of limited control. It's just so frustrating watching my team run play action, getting sacked for a 7 yard loss, and then coming back to the run expecting me to get it all back. Just let me run the ball the first damn time.

You might try upping he difficulty. I found the high school stuff ridiculously easy, too. But then I realized that despite having my default setting at All-American, RTG still default to the easiest level.

But I like averaging 7 yards a carry. I don't see how else I'm supposed to win the Heisman or set school records. Clearly in RTG just as in Dynasty, the CPU sim games are running on a 15 min timer, while my games are on 5 minutes. Can't even change that in RTG, so I really have no other way to compete except way out of whack stats.

Still don't know why there isn't an option in Dynasty to set CPU sim quarter length. I already play 6 min quarters instead of 5 and still in 4 seasons of dynasty have never had a player in the final 5 for Heisman, and only won like 3 or 4 awards total, despite only losing 3-4 games total, having at least 1-3 all americans every year, having 2 undefeated seasons, and winning the BCS Championship once. The stats are pretty jacked up.

But it's even worse in RTG when you can't change your length or the CPU either one.

But I like averaging 7 yards a carry. I don't see how else I'm supposed to win the Heisman or set school records.

Get better!

firesloth wrote:
But I like averaging 7 yards a carry. I don't see how else I'm supposed to win the Heisman or set school records.

Get better! ;)

Sometimes it doesn't matter. I've had a QB throw for 4,000 yards and run for 2,000 and not win the Heisman. I wouldn't get too hung up on that. It will happen when it happens. You can only do so much.

Anybody know why I can't seem to get any trophies in my dynasty anymore? It's still just me as a single coach in Offline, but I have yet to get What a Weekend for 5 A- recruit visits in the same game, or whatever the achievement is for going Undefeated in a whole season.

I'm wondering if when I play/sim'ed all of those bowl games to get trophies in season 2 if that screwed me up and made it think this was a multi-user dynasty or something? That's the only thing I can figure.

All I can find on official forums is something about in-game rivalry trophies, nothing about achievement/trophy stuff. And that just mentioned deleting your user profile. But I tried that before a home game, then got 5 A or better ratings on a new profile and it still didn't unock. So I'm guessing it's my dynasty file itself that is borked.

Really not envisioning re-playing these 5 years. Nor do I really want to start with any other teams. I guess I shouldn't give a crap about trophies anyway, but it's just annoying that I've completed the objectives anyway in playing and don't get them.

I've never gotten any of my trophies, even when it told me I earned them. Not sure what the bug is. But it's not like my wife is going to be impressed when I show them off to her anyway.

After 31 seasons in the Big 12, 11 National Championships and countless awards, the Winterfell Wolves of Ypsilanti, Michigan got an invite to join the Big Ten. WHAT?! I took it. It was time to shake things up.

Wow 31 years.

I just finished up season 5 with Louisville, and got left out of the title game again. Despite scheduling and winning OoC games at Florida (last year's #1), at Ohio St (last years title loser) and at Texas Tech (to fulfill recruit promises), as well as at home against Notre Dame. Somehow Ohio St didn't take care of Penn St. And even though I scheduled USC last year I didn't this year, and they went undefeated to make the title game. Thankfully the SEC part of my plan worked, with Florida beating Alabama to get me up to #3, but it wasn't enough.

Part of me is tempted to restart and move to the SEC. At least that way I'll get the title game to put down whoever is challenging me there, and I can keep scheduling enough OoC games to put down other top 5 teams. Hell, maybe I'll get some respect for winning my conference there. Even though Cincy and WV were both ranked when I beat them and at season's end, the Big East just isn't helping me out apparently. Plus not having a championship game means 1-less week to pile up stats.

This season went pretty wildly. I quit out of my first game ever in dynasty. My all-american, captain, lynchpin of the offense, Heisman candidate, impact player HB, who I convinced to come back for his senior year got hurt for 12 weeks against Ohio St in week 3. I was up 14-10 at the time but couldn't take the injury. So I restarted, and nearly got beat. Gave up my first ever safety when there was a holding penalty called as I tried to run from my own 1. Squeaked by 13-12, kicking the winning FG with under a minute left.

Then 2 games later, I thought my HB went out again for a minor injury in the 4th. But I didn't check the report postgame, and after saving already I found out that he had a broken foot and was "out for season" Guess the game was determined to knock him out, despite his 91 injury rating, 3rd best on my team.

I did have a strong 2nd HB though, with 99 speed. I had been using him in a few formation subs as a change-of-pace back from my other guy. So I decided I was going to make a push for Heisman and other awards with him as the focus of my offense. I proceeded to score 6 TDs in one game with him when I forced 5 turnovers on a terrible UConn team. I broke a single game record with 318 rushing yards. I broke season team records for TDs and yards that I had previously set in dynasty. And all this with him not starting the first 4-5 games. He was national player of the week 5 times, and conference player 6 or 7. He won all 3 postseason RB awards, but still never got to be a Heisman finalist.

I won coach of the year, probably due to that injury as well as my 2nd best CB being knocked out for 12 weeks. And still, no title game pisses me off more than all the good stuff that happened pleases me. :X The BCS is even worse in this game than in real life, since it seems that 3-4 teams go undefeated every year.

In good news, I have the #1 recruiting class for next year, as bowl season starts, with 7 scholarships left for the post-bowl recruiting period. Amazingly I have no 5* recruits though, lost every one that I went after. But with 15 4* guys and a couple 3* FBs, it's still a pretty solid class. Sadly the way my achievements/trophies are screwed up I probably won't get the reward for that if it holds...

Love this game, but hate it at the same time.

PS: If Herbstreet says one more time that "I thought these teams were evenly matched, but Louisville really played well" when I'm a top-5 team playing an unranked team with a losing record like Syracuse or UConn, I'm going to throw something through my TV. Gah.

Stele -- Clearly you need to get a 360 so you can better commiserate with the rest of us...

Well we wanted a blu-ray player for our nice new tv, and it was easy to convince the wife to drop $100 extra for the PS3, with the great deal I got.

Convincing her to drop $200+ more for another system and pay for Live on top of that, not very likely.

Stele wrote:

Well we wanted a blu-ray player for our nice new tv, and it was easy to convince the wife to drop $100 extra for the PS3, with the great deal I got.

Convincing her to drop $200+ more for another system and pay for Live on top of that, not very likely. :(

Get a used one. Don't tell her about Live.

firesloth wrote:
Stele wrote:

Well we wanted a blu-ray player for our nice new tv, and it was easy to convince the wife to drop $100 extra for the PS3, with the great deal I got.

Convincing her to drop $200+ more for another system and pay for Live on top of that, not very likely. :(

Get a used one. Don't tell her about Live. ;)

Mr.Green wrote:

CONFORM!

I did crush Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl for another #2 finish. I had 5 INTs, 1 was against their backup QB, his first pass after I shook up the starter. I also had 4 forced fumbles, although I didn't recover any. So 38-7, but it could have been much worse.

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