B-Dawg hoists the crystal football after winning a natty at Western Michigan.
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back
Tell a friend: B-Dawg looks to create a monster at Air Force
The first clue of trouble in paradise was the headline: “Boredom setting in?”
B-Dawg had just led his Western Michigan Broncos to a 45-0 trouncing of Penn State, the Broncos’ third rout of a perennial national power in the 2024 season.
What should have been cause for celebration only sucked even more of B-Dawg’s enthusiasm as he improved to 8-0 in his 12th season at the helm after winning his first national championship the previous season.
Instead, he offered a cryptic quote that suggested he was about to turn in his controller and walk away from the game.
“I’ve had some life changes that have made coaching this team to another national championship less of a priority,” B-Dawg said at the time. “However, I’ve had nights in which I could’ve fired up the PS3, but the prospect of another blowout win didn’t seem exciting. I do have Ohio State sitting out there as my next opponent. We always get a great battle with Ohio State. I hope this next game is no different, even if we lose. Without the fear of losing, this game isn’t much fun.”
That game was posted on April 12, 2016.
Since then, it’s been radio silence from B-Dawg.
He played two more games that were never posted, trouncing Ohio State and Indiana to raise Western’s record to 10-0.
“I kept meaning to post those games, but then I figured, ‘Why bother?’” B-Dawg said. “The passion was gone.”
The “life changes” to which B-Dawg alluded was being in the first few months of a new relationship after his previous girlfriend of several years abruptly showed herself to be a cheating money-grubbing hoe who would rather be with guys who had money, even if they were fat MF’ers who didn’t treat her nearly as well. His new relationship turned into a marriage in November 2017.
B-Dawg was married before, but he began binge-playing NCAA Football and Madden well into the night starting in 2002 because, as he’s put it, “It wasn’t worth my while to go to bed early, if you know what I mean.” With a lot of free time on his hands and no sex life whatsoever, B-Dawg began posting his results almost daily at MaddenMania (pour a sip), first with the Detroit Lions in Madden 2003 and then the University of Michigan in NCAA 2004.
Fast-forward to 2016. The lack of excitement over the game, lack of free time and a change in priorities meant B-Dawg’s copy of NCAA ’14 began gathering dust. Oh, there would be sparks of interest in starting a dynasty as a new college football season began, but those sparks didn’t create any fire.
Then, on a cold winter day in January 2018, with an afternoon to kill before covering high school basketball that night, B-Dawg fired up the PS3 and started a new dynasty.
After scrolling through teams and imagining possibilities with each, he settled on Air Force for reasons we’ll get into later.
Unsure how things would go with so much time off and a switch from All-American to Heisman mode, B-Dawg decided to play a full season before he began posting his dynasty bit by bit. If the results seemed realistic enough, he would post. If not, nobody would ever know these games were played. He had no idea that, because of a combination of time availability and interest, it would take him until August of 2020 to complete the first season.
He began with 2018 rosters and nearly scrapped this and went to a dynasty with 2019 rosters and then 2020 rosters as he slowly worked his way through the first season. But he eventually got the bug to keep going and completed a season.
It took from Jan. 21, 2019 until Aug. 25, 2020 to play the first season. B-Dawg hopes to average one game a week now that he’s taken this ‘nasty out of the closet.
So, here we go. This won’t be a typical B-Dawg dynasty in terms of detail and pace of play, but by gradually posting games that have already been played, hopefully there won’t be long gaps between posts.
Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs is B-Dawg’s new home.
Why Air Force?
The most important decision in any dynasty is selecting a team.
Do you run with your favorite team? Do you rebuild a struggling program in a power conference? Do you take a team from a mid-major and build it to national prominence, switching to a power conference along the way?
B-Dawg has rolled with his favorite team, Michigan, in three dynasties. That becomes way too easy way too soon. He’s used all three Mid-American Conference teams from Michigan, so another season in the MAC would have been mind-numbing.
The most intriguing crappy school in a power conference is Vanderbilt, but B-Dawg coached the Commodores in NCAA 2007.
B-Dawg is a patriotic sort who has always been intrigued with the military schools. He played an Army dynasty in NCAA 2003 that wasn’t posted. At the time, he considered coaching Army to a national championship, switching to Navy or Air Force, doing the same, then going to the final school. That seemed too time-consuming.
B-Dawg settled on Air Force, because it’s a military school and plays in the Mountain West Conference. That means playing on the beloved Smurf Turf at Boy-Z State every other year.
So, why not just run with Boy-Z State if he has such a fetish for blue fields? Well, that would be too easy, as the Broncos are a powerhouse in the Mountain West. A powerhouse team in a middling conference sounds like the worst dynasty imaginable.
Did you say Heisman mode? (Gulp!)
B-Dawg readily admits he’s not the best player out there.
As such, he doesn’t play manually and clings to All-American mode like a child does its security blanket.
But even coming up with sliders that favor the CPU in All-American mode creates a fairly easy game if you play regularly enough.
Heisman mode, however, scares the crap out of B-Dawg any time someone suggests it. Before playing this dynasty, he messed around with some Heisman mode games with default sliders, and the results were promising. He had to work to make plays.
The sliders could be a work in progress as the season goes along, but he’s starting out with default sliders. Yes, we all want to have a challenge where the game doesn’t become too easy. But we don’t want the game to become an exercise in frustration that causes us to break our only remaining PS3 controller.
We don’t need no stinkin’ rules!
I’m not going to go overboard with dynasty rules, since I’m already handicapping myself by playing on Heisman mode and I won’t play as often.
I’m not going to get silly with recruiting restrictions, other than I can’t recruit any players from Canada for obvious reasons. As I got started with this dynasty, it was apparent that recruiting isn’t going to be unrealistically easy.
Game-play wise, I’ll use a created offensive and defensive playbook and use the “ask coach” feature to call plays, making exceptions occasionally in hurry-up offenses or to get third-and-one when “ask coach” doesn’t give me a simple HB dive. I’ll play nine-minute quarters.
Reasons for optimism
Air Force goes into this dynasty with a decided lack of talent, which is by design. What’s the sense of building a dynasty when the pieces are already in place?
Air Force is rated C OVR or 74 OVR, depending on your preference. The Falcons are C+ (77) on offense, C (73) on defense and D on special teams. There’s definitely room for improvement.
The cause for optimism in Colorado Springs, besides having a coaching legend take over the helm, is the presence of talented youngsters on the existing roster.
Six of Air Force’s best players are sophomores.
Donald Hammond, an 83 OVR sophomore, will be the starting quarterback. Sophomore defensive end Jordan Jackson is rated 85 OVR, tying for the highest rating on the team.
Sophomore Kadin Remsberg is an intriguing player, leading the running back corps at 76 OVR and leading the entire team with SEC-like 95 SPD. Sophomore outside linebacker Lakota Wills is 76 OVR, tops among linebackers.
Two of the top offensive linemen are sophomores: 74 OVR guard Nolan Laufenberg and 73 OVR tackle Parker Ferguson.
“I’m not sure what the progression is for a program like ours, but these guys could be beasts at our level by their senior years if the progression system is generous,” B-Dawg said.
Long-term goal
B-Dawg doesn’t want to slum it in the Mountain West Conference forever, regardless of the trip every other year to the glorious Smurf Turf.
The goal is to get the Falcons into the Pac-12 Conference to get better competition and more enticing matchups if they can begin to dominate the MWC first. Playing the same teams gets old after a while, so it’ll be nice to switch it up and play in the Pac-12.
At the pace B-Dawg has been playing this dynasty, it could be a few years of real time before Air Force reaches that level of prominence.
THE 411 ON AIR FORCE
Team ratings: C OVR, C+ offense, C defense, D special teams; 74 OVR, 77 offense, 73 defense
Coach stability: A
Coach prestige: B-
Conference prestige: C+
Program tradition: C+
Academic prestige: C+
Stadium atmosphere: C
Television exposure: C
Campus lifestyle: D+
Athletic facilities: D+
Championship contender: D
Pro potential: D
2018 strength of schedule: C-
GAME-PLAY OPTIONS
Offensive skill: Heisman
Defensive skill: Heisman
Injuries: On
Fatigue: On
Quarter length: 9 minutes
Play clock: On
Game speed: Normal
Player min. speed threshold: 50
Home field advantage: On
Ice the kicker: On
PENALTIES
Offsides: 55
False start: 55
Holding: 55
Facemask: 50
Offensive PI: 100
Defensive PI: 100
KR/PR interference: 100
Clipping: 50
Intentional grounding: 71
Roughing the passer: 45
Roughing the kicker: 64
SLIDERS
USER: Everything 50 except interceptions are 10. (Interception slider was lowered a few games in.)
CPU: Everything 50 except interceptions are 20 and punt accuracy is 100.
them to the top of the polls!
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