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

[Hellisan]

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


Coaching Carousel Coverage



Coach Status: Coach Clark wants to compete for National Championships someday, and that doesn't appear to be a possibility at Idaho. He is well respected within the industry right now, but still not a top candidate for new jobs coming into the offseason. Like most good coaches, Clark has taken an interest in his current players and would not make a frivolous decisiont to move on for just any old job. It would have to be something that truly interested him. There are those that point out that BYU just won a national championship, so it can be done in the Mountain West, however, the Vandals are unlikely to ever recruit quite as well as the Cougars do. Even if they continue to improve greatly, they will have to pull the vast majority of their recruits from the 2-star, low 3-star, and occasionally the JUCO ranks. Clark hasn't had great success against rivals so far and wants to beat a Top 25 team with the Vandals, just to prove it can be done, but these issues wouldn't stop him from taking the ideal job.

Let the Carousel Begin

South Carolina: Steve Spurrier retired age 69
Coach Clark thoughts: He was one of the most successful coaches of all time, and also one of the most colorful. Sad to see him go.
New Hire: Nick Aliotti, HC Kansas State (9-4) - Aliotti was hired by Kansas State last year and has already decided to jump ship to the SEC.

Kansas State: Nick Aliotti fled for South Carolina. Hired Jim Bollman, head coach at Marshall (A+, 10-4)
Coach Clark thoughts: Bollman has been doing a good job for a long time, I think the Alabama alma mater could do a good job here.

West Virginia (3 star, 3-9 last year) - HC hired by Arkansas as OC - Hired Nick Howell, DC BYU (A+)
West Virginia asked Coach Clark to come out to Morgantown for an interview. However, the job doesn't interest Clark presently.
Coach Clark thoughts: I'm primarily a west coast guy. For the right job I might see myself moving to the East coast someday, but that won't be considered for now. I wasn't the #1 guy on their list anyway, and that would be something to really consider prior to taking a job.

UCF: George O'Leary has retired from coaching at age 69. Hired Rick Stockstill, OC BYU (A) to replace him
Coach Clark thoughts: Stockstill changed the Air Raid heavily to adapt to Taysom Hill and company, but he won't have as much talent at the commuter school in Orlando . Hard to see this going anywhere.

Oregon State: Mike Riley was fired. Hired Rich Skorsky - HC Ball State (B, 8-5)

Purdue: Dave Clawson was fired. Hired Pat Narduzzi - DC Michigan State (A-)
Coach Clark was the #1 candidate for this job, and declined.
Coach Clark thoughts: Some would say I'm already at a dead-end job, but Purdue seems particularly difficult, plus it feels like I've been there, done that in a different life. Maybe it's the similar uniforms.

Washington State: Mike Leach was fired after going 2-10. Hired Mike Yurich, OC Oklahoma State (B-)
Coach Clark was the #1 candidate for the job. His Grandson attended university at Pullman and dropped out as a youngster. Coach Clark would literally not have to buy a new home in order to take this job, as it's 8 miles away. The Cougs have won 4 games in two years and at this time aren't a much better recruiting draw than Idaho, although they have a pretty talented squad.
Coach Clark thoughts: In the end, I just couldn't pull the trigger on this deal. It's definitely a big step up but something was just wrong about it.

San Diego State: Rocky Long retired from coaching at age 65 after a 4-8 season. Hired Nick Rolovich, who was fired at Texas Tech after one bad year.
Coach Clark was offered this job too, but just can't get into a commuter school without an interesting history to the program as a "move up" job.

Coach Clark has determined to return to Idaho, staying with his existing 5-year contract which is entering its fourth year.

[Knickerbocker91]

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

Somewhat surprised you didn't take the Washington State job, but I can see the appeal to have another good season at Idaho. Like you said, it'll be tough before you can get the high class recruits to even become interested in the Vandals, but if you can win with what you have the better schools will definitely come calling.

[fresnostate]

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

Sounds like Coach Clark is waiting for a better Pac-12 job opening. Lets get the Vandals to double digit wins and see how it plays out next year. I don't know how Cal is doing in your dynasty, but it sounds like a nice stepping stone (great history & tradition).

[mattrd39]

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

Can't blame you for sticking it out with Idaho either. I know sometimes I want to move around to play in different conferences/stadiums/uniforms/playbooks or whatever, but the pull of playing with the guys you actually recruited is too strong!

[Hellisan]

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

Tough losses to close the season Helli, but if I told you that you'd win 10 games before the season started, I'm sure you'd have been thrilled. Looking forward to closing out the season and the next batch of Vandals to come play for Coach Clark!

I couldn't agree more, Matt. You know, it's actually happened (10 wins) way faster than I anticipated, maybe the sliders aren't difficult enough, but NCAA Football (real life) is one of those things where the coach really matters. I honestly think a great coach could get 10 wins at Idaho inside of 3-4 years (if they were in this conference against these teams) and when it comes to my Grandpa, I'm ok with the notion of him being great. It would still be fun to do a dynasty some day where the coach can't do much right, but I know I wouldn't keep track of it as much that's for sure. I've always wanted to do a dynasty about a... well, Bobby Petrino type coach. Nevertheless, from 10 wins to anything significant like competing, is going to be a gigantic leap and almost assuredly won't happen with the Vandals. At the very least I need to have a realistic schedule and have maybe two giant programs at the start of the season to be beat down against.

Tough way to end the season but as matt said, ten wins has to be even more than you dreamed for. It might not have been the ending we wanted but overall this team grew a lot this season and has set things up for the next generation of Vandals. Looking forward to the offseason!

Cheese thanks for reading man, like i said above I agree, what a great year for the Vandals and can't wait to see what happens for an encore. The stupid offseason takes forever hahaha...

Somewhat surprised you didn't take the Washington State job, but I can see the appeal to have another good season at Idaho. Like you said, it'll be tough before you can get the high class recruits to even become interested in the Vandals, but if you can win with what you have the better schools will definitely come calling.

If I was doing a pure sim job, there's no way I don't take the Wazzu opening. No way in hell. I went to Wazzu, I love it there, but I am really a stickler for uniforms and stadium. I really think the gray looks horrible if it's more than just an accent. The stadium is actually improving and is pretty nice in the game from what it was when I wast here 20 years ago. Sounds weird but I love the freaking Kibbie Dome for some reason, I went there a number of times.

Sounds like Coach Clark is waiting for a better Pac-12 job opening. Lets get the Vandals to double digit wins and see how it plays out next year. I don't know how Cal is doing in your dynasty, but it sounds like a nice stepping stone (great history & tradition).

I'm not sure what I want, I know there are jobs I'd have a hard time resisting in the Midwest, but ideally, I'd love to stay in the Northwest. Oregon State had an opening, I really can't handle those uniforms even if I think they look great in game.

Can't blame you for sticking it out with Idaho either. I know sometimes I want to move around to play in different conferences/stadiums/uniforms/playbooks or whatever, but the pull of playing with the guys you actually recruited is too strong!

So difficult to move on! You nailed it lol.

I chose to catch up the last 10 or so pages and I thought for sure that by the time I was nearing the last page, you'd be off to another school.

Congratulations on sticking it with the Vandals for another year. Great write up, that coaching carousel was fun to read. I had to take a second look of your dynasty title that it didn't say "Hellisan's Vandals" or something - so you made me believe that you had your eyes on the football program of Idaho - no where else. One of the best threads of all time imho. Keep it up, man!

Matt10, thanks man that means a freaking ton to me, I'm having a really good time with this, just went through players leaving, I love the improvement system particularly, most of my guys never improve at all lol. Bastids. I was definitely tempted this offseason by Wazzu and even SDSU, I think even though SDSU is a commuter school it has potential. The local yokels on sport radio say things like "JUST BUILD A FENCE AROUND SAN DIEGO!!!" They have no idea how big a draw it is for a player, getting a full-ride scholarship, to go to a real college town and a real football program. No idea. Well that's off topic.

[Matt10]

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

I chose to catch up the last 10 or so pages and I thought for sure that by the time I was nearing the last page, you'd be off to another school.

Congratulations on sticking it with the Vandals for another year. Great write up, that coaching carousel was fun to read. I had to take a second look of your dynasty title that it didn't say "Hellisan's Vandals" or something - so you made me believe that you had your eyes on the football program of Idaho - no where else. One of the best threads of all time imho. Keep it up, man!

[Hellisan]

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








Players Leaving Early: 0
Players Graduating: 15 - Profiles Below







None

[thesportsguru11]

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

I'm curious to see how the Lawson thing plays out now that we know you're staying. If anything happens to him it will be very interesting to see what you have behind him (I think Chalich one more year, right?).

Also Helli, maybe I haven't paid enough attention but does player regression happen on its own or do you have a say in it? The one issue I have with dynasty right now is that I never see any minimal progression, it's always big jumps of 3, 4, 5 or more for seemingly everyone.

[Hellisan]

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

I'm curious to see how the Lawson thing plays out now that we know you're staying. If anything happens to him it will be very interesting to see what you have behind him (I think Chalich one more year, right?).

Also Helli, maybe I haven't paid enough attention but does player regression happen on its own or do you have a say in it? The one issue I have with dynasty right now is that I never see any minimal progression, it's always big jumps of 3, 4, 5 or more for seemingly everyone.

I posted something about this previously, first few pages can't remember, but it changed so much I updated it. It takes time and work but is worth it for me to be rid of the EA "throw in the towel" improvement system. Pathetic it is.

--------------------------------

I've always wanted to incorporate a realistic improvement system. I've given it a little thought and will be incorporating something as follows: (actually at this point I've made a ton of changes to it and it wasn't a quick thing - I was determined to get something that if anything improved my team LESS overall, but allowed me to have some players improve in unique ways or by a unique amount... like regressing massively)

Random Work Ethic (ETH) rating will be created for each player from 40-99 - 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.

http://www.wessa.net/rwasp_rngnorm.wasp

This service can create a set of randomly generated numbers given some guidelines you set.

Settings:

Send output to: Browser Blue - Charts White
Number of values (?) - The number of incoming players you are creating ETH for!
Mean (?) 70 - my suggestion - we will be setting this from 40 to 99
S.D. (?) Standard Deviation - I usually go with 15 - you can experiment from around 12 to 17ish.
Color code (?) 2
List Random Numbers in table? (?) Yes (this avoids you having to do it later)
Number of bins (?) 0
Lower truncation point (leave blank for -infinity) 40
Upper truncation point (leave blank for +infinity) 99

So then you get a randomized list of numbers from 40 to 99 - those are your WORK ETHIC ratings (ETH) - with those settings, you will usually get most of the numbers in the 60-80 range which is what I'm going for, with approximately equal low and high numbers. You can sim this multiple times until you get a set that looks like what you want. Then go to the indexed value and round those, and apply them to the players in order on your roster - they're randomized.

How does the ETH rating work - basically I will sim improvement for each player one by one. I organize the team by work ethic in my spreadsheet and start with the lowest or highest guys. The highest rated guys have a random improvement possibility from 1-12. The lowest rated guys can do anything from regress -5 points to improve 4 points. Here's a spreadsheet that shows how this is organized.



Once I know how much each player is going to improve, I want then know how they're going to improve because I don't want it to be up to me. so I have broken it down into 4 basic possibilities that follow this random opinion on speed:

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 1-4 (random.org) 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.

All Around - Goes up in a lot of categories, kind of like all the recruits do. You can cuztomize this, maybe you want most of the players to improve like the game would have them do, but just have them go up or down more. Up to you.

Skill - Positional attributes such as THP/THA - determined with another two skill drawings.... See this spreadsheet below. The second skill drawing is just so that if he improves too much for changes to the skills selected to take hold in a reasonable manner, I go to the next skill which is a more typical skill that will affect OVR.



Sorry, this is all really disjointed, I didn't want to create a guide or anything just give you a quick idea how I've figured to do it... I haven't had crazy improvement spikes at all yet. Yes it takes awhile but not incredibly long and you get to know your players pretty well. It usually takes me a couple of evenings which can take a week for that to happen.

"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.

Last Notes: The ETH rating and CSH ratings are permanent. You may or may not like this. Everything listed here is just for one offseason, the player won't improve or regress in the same way his entire career unless that happens randomly.

[Hellisan]

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

[Hellisan]

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



ATH Albert Hidalgo - New Recruit - Moved from ATH to HB (79 OVR)
Running back is his only true position. He had a good OVR rating at WR but can't catch at all. At free safety, he is well below desirable as a hitter and tackler.

RT Mike Powell - New Recruit - Moved to LT (76 OVR)
Powell is expected to be the blindside protector for the next four years. He will likely start right away.

C Dan King - Returning Player - Moved to LG (OVR TBD)
72 AWR to 58 AWR by game - Adjusted randomly from -10 to +5 of his orig. awareness. (73 AWR). I have always hated how it just assumes everybody gets dumber with every position switch, even moving next door. Wouldn't many players know how to play guard better than C?

C Brett Thompson - Returning Player - Moved to RG (OVR TBD)
70 AWR to 56 AWR by game - Adjusted randomly from -10 to +5 of his orig. awareness. (68 AWR).

LE Damien Downing - New Recruit - Moved to RE (No OVR change)
We needed help on the other side, we've got Zach "always gassed" Cable lining up at LE.

FS Justin Martinez - New Recruit - Moved to SS (OVR TBD)
54 to 43 AWR in game - Adjusted randomly from -10 to +5 of his orig. awareness (54)

LG Matt Harrison - Returning Player - Moved to C (OVR TBD)
59 to 47 AWR in game - Adjusted randomly from -10 to +5 of his orig. awareness (54)

Cut Candidates
DT Brian Woods
Aaron Clayton

CUT
DT Brian Woods
QB Matt Linehan
WR Colt Austin
WR Anthony Robinson

[Matt10]

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

Bahari Rogers sounds like a solid CB, great height - hopefully he gets to see the field. Is Hidalgo going to return kicks?

[Hellisan]

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

Bahari Rogers sounds like a solid CB, great height - hopefully he gets to see the field. Is Hidalgo going to return kicks?

Hidalgo is certainly in the mix, there are a number of options but I need to scout this team out better! Thanks Matt.

[Matt10]

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

True way to get into your dynasty by reading the indepth recruiting class summary. Great write up, and I usually don't read much - but this and Bdawg's is the one I'll actually spend time reading the words on the screen

[Cheese2121]

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

LOVED the offseason articles. The personalities, work ethics, and citzenship ratings just add so much to the story. I will be really excited to see what happens with Carstens and if he can keep his nose out of trouble...also the comments on the Nike Dome...nearly spit out my drink reading those.