The Ladder 2018 - Bowl Season - Deadline is 11/29 (Sat) at 11 p.m. EST

[Julio Riddols]

I'll be online and ready to roll, just send me an invite when you get on and we'll have at it. I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to think of how we will contain Whaley.

[chesapeake]

Congrats, Julio. I had no answer at all to your offense. I tried everything I could think of to either get some pressure on you or to cover up those receivers, but I couldn't find a way to get it done. Good job.

[Eaglesfan27]

Awww. I was hoping for a human opponent as those are always tense but incredibly fun games. I will get my game in on Monday which is my next day off from work.

[CU Tiger]

Ill be on at 1pm.
I think Whaley is out for the game. An Agent got to him and told him it would hurt his draft stock.

[Julio Riddols]

You mean we spent the last month planning for Whaley and hes out??? OH LAWD

[CU Tiger]

I would like to congratulate Jason Pitts on his Biletnikoff award and his recruiting classmate Pierre Whaley on winning the Heisman, Maxwell, Walter Camp and Doak Walker awards.

Great career guys!
Now just give me 1 more game please.

[Kodos]

Congratulations to the 2018 Heisman winner, FAU's Pierre Whaley.

[CU Tiger]

Which begs the question..when was the last time the world saw a 6-2 210lb white speed back?

[CU Tiger]

I really hate EA's server engine

[CU Tiger]

Well shit.
Thats 5 tries and over an hour and we havent got the opening kickoff in the air yet.

Im going to have to get some work done sometime this afternoon so maybe we can try another day.
Though not sure when with the coming holidays

[Kodos]

Thanks, Obama!


Seriously, that sucks. EA and their wiggy servers.

[CU Tiger]

Its weird...it will let either of us start the game and invite the other.
Coin toss is fine.
Both teams line up to kick and then I get a lost connection to the opponent error.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

Which begs the question..when was the last time the world saw a 6-2 210lb white speed back?

Lol. Poor Thurman had to go up against the super human RB. Congrats!

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

Its weird...it will let either of us start the game and invite the other.
Coin toss is fine.
Both teams line up to kick and then I get a lost connection to the opponent error.

That sucks.

[CU Tiger]

6 x now...Im done trying for the day

[CU Tiger]

WTF...Dammit EA.

So we decided to give it one more go and actually connected and had a good game going. Julio was kicking my azz as the turnover bug had lit us up.

Midway through the 4th quarter, I am just trying to kill the clock and take my wounded pride home, run to the right, juke a defender and "connection lost to your opponent".

WTF

[Julio Riddols]

The game let me finish vs. CPU, so I went ahead and knelt down to run the clock out and the game finished with the same score as when the disconnect occurred, so it's all good.

That one fumble by your RB on the pass over the middle, I thought you should have challenged that one.. But the one on the return, that was unexpected. That dude got lit up, but I was surprised to see it come out. The QB fumble was the biggest one of them all though, because it let us get some separation.

You can;t stop Pierre Whaley, but we did manage to contain him real well in the second half I thought. I recognized that wildcat play as a big threat the first time you ran it, so the rest of the game if I saw it I just audibled the LB's to blitz, and I ran a 4-4 most of the second half to try and ensure we could get someone back there to track him down. He's a beast though.

Offensively, it felt we could do no wrong. I don't think I have had a game like that since we put up all those points on South Carolina earlier in the season - I was making the right reads all game long and it was a big reason we were able to keep drives going, because the FAU run D was no joke. Seemed like we could only get 3 yards at a time with the occasional 7 yarder.. Felt like we mixed plays really well this week too, I don't know that we ran the same play twice, except for running plays.

All in all, it was a shootout really, but we managed to get a foothold by making a couple big plays in the secondary early and then forced and recovered 3 fumbles in the second half to pull away.

I hope Whaley is a Senior though, I don't want to try and figure out how to stop him again if we meet next season.

Gg CU, Glad we got enough of it in that the result was no longer in doubt after all that hell of trying to get underway in the beginning. It was almost as if we needed to remind the EA servers that we were allowed to play each other or something.

[CU Tiger]

GG Julio.
Yeah I am clueless how to defend the pass lately. I think at one point you were 20/21. And at one point there I was in Nickel with 9 in coverage, expecting the pass, dropped on of the two rushing DL into coverage and you still completed like 3 in a row against that D set up.

I may need to seriously analyze either my DB recruiting or my defense play.

[Kodos]

K-State gave us a lot of problems, we gave us a lot of problems, and the refs called back a pick-6 for us, but we did manage to win 28-19.

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

I can probably get this done this afternoon if you are available around say 1pm?

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

GG Julio.
Yeah I am clueless how to defend the pass lately. I think at one point you were 20/21. And at one point there I was in Nickel with 9 in coverage, expecting the pass, dropped on of the two rushing DL into coverage and you still completed like 3 in a row against that D set up.

I may need to seriously analyze either my DB recruiting or my defense play.

It is pretty damn hard to come up with solid coverage schemes against anyone really. You almost have to go man and switch to zone on the right plays in order to catch people sleeping and try and get a pick, because incompletions are rare. I know when I played chesapeake in our two games, it was mostly his killer TE tearing up my LB's, and it was mostly a mismatch thing. That dude he has is a monster. In our game I am not sure what the total difference in talent was, but I think it was a confluence of talent at certain positions as well as getting the right coverages for what I was trying to do on particular plays. Usually if you get me a couple reads deep, I am toast in the pocket. I was just lucky to have my first or second read running the right route against the right coverage on most of the plays.

[Eaglesfan27]

We took out our frustration from last night's USC game by demolishing Boise State in the NC game. Thurman had us up 21-0 with over 200 yards of passing by 6 minutes into the game. We slowed down the tempo once we had the lead but Thurman finished with over 400 yards passing, 100 yards rushing, and a bunch of TD's as we jumped to a 56-0 lead before I pulled my starters. Our back-ups gave up a last minute TD which ended our shut out bid. We won 63-7.

We lose a lot of talent, and I will really miss Thurman, but we are bringing in some very talented freshman including a receiver who I think would have been a starter on this team. Will be interesting to see how next season goes.

[Kodos]

Congrats on yet another title, EF27!

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Congrats on yet another title, EF27!

Thanks! Hopefully, next year, we can play each other in the title game

[Julio Riddols]

Not if I have a say in it.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Thanks! Hopefully, next year, we can play each other in the title game

Tough when we're both in the Big Ten.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Tough when we're both in the Big Ten.

Oh yeah... good point. Long day at work. Well, I look forward to seeing you in the Conference Championship Game again next year.

[Kodos]

Revenge will be mine!

[chesapeake]

Congrats, EF27.

Duke had a mostly routine win against Notre Dame. The only unusual thing about it was that my 98 rated QB was broken in the 1st half and my backup, rated 87, came in and was fantastic. He is much, much less accurate but has a stronger arm. It really showed.

[Eaglesfan27]

Thanks. I think we are all set to advance.

[MacroGuru]

Virginia Tech beat us down in the end, we couldn't generate much in offense and losing my starting (Well 2nd string QB, as the starter went out at the beginning of the season) QB and running with my back up didn't bode well.

We still hung in there until the end where we were marching down the field and I threw a pick 6 at their GL. That was the nail in the coffin....

[Kodos]

I'll advance things tonight. Want to make sure I record some things before we go on to the next stage.

[Kodos]

2018 BCS Championship Game Results









2018 Season Stats Leaders

[chesapeake]

My QB's rushing numbers are crazy: 81 attempts, -438 yards and 10 fumbles. Yikes! Considering I rarely ran him (and from all those fumbles, you know why) that's a lot of sacks. It is amazing that he didn't break down before the bowl game.

[Kodos]

Looking at our Heisman winner, maybe we need to make rushing a bit tougher?

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm good with whatever we do.

[Kodos]

[Kodos]

Welcome to the Big Ten, Macro!

[Kodos]

2018 Final Rankings

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Welcome to the Big Ten, Macro!

Welcome Macro!

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Welcome Macro!

Woot! And I am about to get my arse handed to me!

I am excited to be in the Big Ten now. It took me a few seasons to get this team right, but it has been fun getting here.

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Looking at our Heisman winner, maybe we need to make rushing a bit tougher?

Whaley got his yards off a specific play. Unless we ban that play, changing things wont make much of a difference.

I'm not bitter about it, but the CPU just doesn't know how to defend it.

[Julio Riddols]

Not terribly disappointed with a 2nd place finish.. I wish I had that 2 point conversion I missed against Duke in our first loss back. We were inches away from tying it up, but failed and it cost us a shot at the title.

I'll miss the hell out of Robert Burley. I wish career stats carried over in the transition from 2013 to 2014, because he was easily the team MVP every year of his career with as much as he did on the field. Played iron man all 4 seasons and was a legit playmaker in every position he played.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Julio Riddols

Whaley got his yards off a specific play. Unless we ban that play, changing things wont make much of a difference.

I'm not bitter about it, but the CPU just doesn't know how to defend it.

Ideally, I'd like people to minimize their use of plays like that. We all know certain plays work great. I'd hope that people would limit themselves to using those plays rarely (once or twice a game, maybe).

[Kodos]

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Julio Riddols

Whaley got his yards off a specific play. Unless we ban that play, changing things wont make much of a difference.

I'm not bitter about it, but the CPU just doesn't know how to defend it.

The man isn't 100% wrong.
But its more like 4 plays and a 95+ speed and acc back. Plus Id argue that the rest of the league looks normal. TO make a change on 1 guy is pretty clearly targeting.


Plus hes a senior hes gone.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Ideally, I'd like people to minimize their use of plays like that. We all know certain plays work great. I'd hope that people would limit themselves to using those plays rarely (once or twice a game, maybe).

Its wasnt 1 play.
I have 5--6 run plays that are pretty money.
Julio was burned bad by 1 of them and then shut it down.

I will say this, there are several routes that are the same way (all crosses for example) so you can ban a play but there is always another play with a crossing route. Im just a run guy. Anyone whoever played in an FOF league with me will remember me running 90% of the time. Its a soft spot of mine. My HS team was a run option team and my deceased best friend from HS was our star RB....its what I do in video games...sorry if that sounds wrong.

[Julio Riddols]

Sorry if it sounded like I was singling you out, CU - I was trying to think of a way to say it without sounding like a dick. I don't begrudge someone using money plays, its the money plays that can't be stopped by any means (human or cpu) that actually get under my skin.

I used to be a big run guy back in the tecmo days, James Brooks was my man. I've gone over to the dark side in recent years, ever since it became possible to play a career as a QB in Madden. I still prefer a good run game to a prolific pass game though. Having a back that can just grind out yards and wear a defense out is fun. Whaley would have killed us I think if we didn't have really quick LB's to get out there and get a hand on him.

Didn't know it was 5-6 plays though.. I wish I knew what these plays were, I never seem to know the money plays - The one time I did was back on Madden 04 or 05 where the corner route was an absolute killer and had to be covered manually.

[CU Tiger]

Wanteed to come back to this. I dont know that they are "money" plays. For example they are worthless in the Pyramid dynasty where my RBs are comparatively slower bruisers.

I do experiment with the Wildcat a fair amount and enjoy the variety it gives. I think I ran that Whaley wildcat play 4 times against you. It was actually a read option play but the way you slide adjusted your LBs it took the Jet motion out every time leaving the dive as the only option. Then you were controlling the DE and crashing him in to take away the "Dive" (which is really an off tackle) when you crashed that DE I was just outside juking to get the edge. The last time I ran it you kept the DE at home and I turned it up for a modest 3-4 yard gain. At that point you had adapted so I went away from it.

In the game (much like in real life) with the wide hashmarks a speed back in an orbital arc will always have an angle to the wide edge. In fact that was one of Chip Kelly's principles at Oregon. I used that philosophy against you a fair amount. Obviously it didnt make the difference.


I just wanted to make sure no one thought I was running a "money" play 10-12 x a game to get his stats.

[Julio Riddols]

I actually never control players on D. Maybe I shouldn't make that known.

[Julio Riddols]

We're just gonna have to keep the speed backs out of your hands then, heh.