The Career of J.D. Clark (NCAA 14)

[Hellisan]

Coverage of Week 13

[Hellisan]

[Hellisan]

[Hellisan]

Las Cruces, NM – Coach J.D. Clark admitted in a recent interview that the athletic department expected five wins out of the Vandal team this year. With four wins in the final week, that expectation didn’t make a win any more important.

“You go out each week wanting a win. At the very core of your being, you want to win,” said Clark. “That obviously made no difference in terms of how much I wanted this, or we wanted this. Put another team against us, we want to kick their heads in.”
No heads were ultimately kicked in against New Mexico State, but the Vandals outlasted the Aggies in a battle which featured a good deal of offense and strategy.

New Mexico State rolled up 21 first downs and 424 yards of offense. To counter the edge in yards, Idaho was able to manage possession and score last in the first half, then score a touchdown on their opening drive of the second half.

Travaughn Colwell did a lot of damage with his feet and his arm but was sacked 8 times and the losses repeatedly put the Aggies in bad field position. Colwell had an impressive 15-yard touchdown run immediately after an 82-yard kickoff return to start the game. Chad Chalich countered by driving the Vandals down the field and throwing a nice pass while under pressure, hitting Dezmon Epps in the back of the end zone to tie the game. After the teams traded punts, New Mexico State took a 14-7 lead by hitting a perfect screen pass on 3rd and 10 for a 21-yard score.

Idaho then sandwiched a pair of Austin Rehkow field goals around a NMSU field goal before the play of the game took place with 1:19 to go in the first half. Chalich dropped back and looked for Epps over the middle, but the strong safety bit down as Deon Watson sped past. Chalich threw a perfect deep ball to Watson which gave the Vandals a 20-17 lead at halftime. The lead was stretched to 27-17 when Chalich went back to Epps on the first drive of the third quarter for a touchdown that topped off a 10 play, 71-yard drive.

New Mexico State were by no means defeated as they responded immediately with an 11-play drive of their own to pull within three points at 27-24. The team traded punts, then Chalich took charge once again, managing the consistent ground attack while completing key third down passes. He hit Michael LaGrone for a key 16-yard gain on 3rd and 8 before finding LaGrone wide open for a touchdown and 34-24 lead.

The Aggies responded with a strong drive, but good tackling prevented a touchdown as they kicked a field goal. The NMSU defense then forced an important three and out with the game entering its final minutes. The Aggies mounted an impressive drive, but Vandal cornerbacks made a pair of outstanding plays to deny their opponent. Solomon Dixon batted away a pass in one-on-one coverage on 3rd down, and Delency Parham did exactly the same thing on the other side of the field to force a turnover on downs a play later, and win the game.

Quarterback Chalich had the game of his caree. Despite a few questionable throws, he avoided turnovers and completed 60% of his passes for 237 yards and four touchdowns.

“This team has worked hard all season. We’ve never let up. We’ll take this win into the offseason and continue to improve,” said Chalich.

[Hellisan]

Coverage of Week 14

[Hellisan]

"WE" and total team improvement

I've always wanted to incorporate a realistic improvement system. I've given it a little thought and will be incorporating something as follows:

Random Work Ethic (WE) rating will be created for each player from 40-99 via random.org - This number will never change. When we recruit new players, we generate that number afterward. This is predicated in the idea that players all (mostly) say the right things and college coaches cannot necessarily know this rating in advance. I may make the occasional exception and calculate it for a few recruits ahead of time but it will only be for players I am not going to take off the board.

When team improvement happens I will add up the total OVR improvement for the team and then calculate what percentage of the team improvement each player will have based on their rating. Players rated 50 or under will actually go down in rating most of the time, while those in the 50-60 range will largely remain stagnant... Note, those players that decrease in rating will not counteract the total points we are able to gain as a team (in other words will not increase the total OVR gain the other players make).

General ideas: Speed will never go up more than 1 and will be rare to see any improvement at all here. 99 speed players just aren't good for a team, or realistic.

Each player will get a random number drawing from 1-3 that centers improvement primarily upon:

Smarts - AWR and positional awareness (ZCV example)

Physical - STR/AGI/ACC/ and things of this nature and may bleed into most physical aspects of their positional skill ratings.

Skill - Positional attributes such as THP/THA

Hope to do this relatively quickly in the offseason but know it will become a time drain - oh well.

"CSH" and Discipline

Will also have a CS or Citizenship rating to impact how players are selected for things like suspensions and being dropped from the team.

These ratings will be kept out of sight on the posted dynasty here but will impact things greatly.

[Hellisan]

Coverage of Week 15

[thesportsguru11]

That is the strangest top 25 I've ever seen..

Can't believe Andre got snubbed...

Things look solid for the Vandals going forward. Hopeful we can see a bowl berth in 2014.