Success Passing The Ball

[cbc72]

Great tips!

For me, I don't have a lot of time to game, though I have been playing NCAA since Bill Walsh. I can get in a game a night several nights a week, but don't have time for practice mode. Every year I find that plays that worked for me the previous year don't in the new title, so I have to relearn a lot.

I have to just rely on dropping back, quickly looking for any blitzers and trying to spot my open receiver.

I found this year that the CPU reaction on D is just way too strong, psychic as some have said.

On AA, with 50 threshold, slow game speed, I have bumped user pass blocking to 100 and WR catch to 60. I have turned CPU pass coverage down to 0, pass rush to 0 and CPU int to 10. (these are just the sliders I tweaked to make passing easier).

With these sliders I have realistic passing numbers, getting anywhere from 35% - 65% passing depending on the quality of my QB and the opponent. I play a sim style, so no plays get abused.

[Broncos86]

The one thing I keep kicking myself about is not paying more attention to the pocket. I keep trying to rely on peripheral vision, and it's just not going to cut it.

[ROL Jamas]

I taught myself how to pass on NCAA '05, and used that knowledge for a few money plays for years. Wanting to expand my knowledge, I decided to do some reading last year on actual passing concepts. I went over to Chris Brown's Smart Football blog and read about sticks, drag routes, four verticals, levels, smash, divide concepts, things like that. The wealth on that website was an absolute goldmine. Learning who to read pre-snap, what your progressions were on these basic concepts has helped me torch people online and on dynasty.

Example: with a stick route, you're reading the corner who's guarding the fly route. If he plays man with the fly WR and he has safety help, you read the slot receiver who's running the 5 yard out-route. If he's manned up as well as the fly WR, you read the TE/trips side WR for the short comeback route. If all of these options are manned up with safety help over the top, that should leave the weakside WR in single coverage on an inside slant route, as the defense is obviously playing man coverage. If the defense only has 5 guys in the box to compensate for your passing game, that should also leave them open to a quick audible to a run up the middle, as you have 5 blockers on 5 in the box.

When people complain about the short passing game on here, stating its' too difficult, I tend not to notice simply because I'm having no problems whatsoever. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way, so I would highly recommend taking a little bit of time and reading about these concepts if you want to further enhance your passing game.

Am I schilling for Chris Brown's Smart Football blog? Well...yeah, kind of.

[StumpyJones]

I was constantly struggling in the pass game this year, but I changed one thing that helped me tremendously. I started running more.

I would usually line up in a 3-wide set and try most runs in between the tackles. Now, not only did this do the obvious of opening up PA, but by focusing on running, I got a smaller piece of the action to read the line, linebackers, and possible blitzers. From there, I was much more successful at reading the D pre- & post-snap on pass plays. Now I still get sacked a good deal on PA's, I still have to work on my pocket skills and sometimes the lack of WR's playing the ball ticks me off, but I'm much better and improving.

[bigbails35]

Quick question, how exactly do you guys read a cover 6, i can recognize everything else but cover 6 is new this year and i am not good at recognizing it.

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by bigbails35

Quick question, how exactly do you guys read a cover 6, i can recognize everything else but cover 6 is new this year and i am not good at recognizing it.

I haven't seen it too much yet and haven't gotten good at reading it yet, so I honestly can't tell you.

There's only a slight difference between Cover 3 and Cover 6 however. Cover 6 just allows more space on one side of the field and less on the other. And the only time it's really important to read Cover 6 is when you're sending 4 receivers on fly routes.

In this case, if the two deep covers are on the left and one is on the right, you might pump fake toward the farthest right WR to see if the safety on that side bites to him, and then quickly launch it to the closer guy on the right side (meanwhile ignoring the left side, because whichever guy you throw to will have at least 2 or 3 defenders on him by the time the ball gets there).

Ultimately though, when you see Cover 3, Cover 4, or Cover 6, you should be throwing to your release valve guy or running for it yourself with your quarterback.



As for those who post in this thread and still complain that the passing game is too hard, I have to ask, did you even read any of the posts in here? Or are you just adding a complaint that you think it's too hard, and you're not willing to put in the effort to make yourself a better passer?

And for those of you who have read the posts and are still struggling, what is it, specifically that you're having the most difficulty with? Perhaps you can upload some replays of your bad pass plays and we can analyze them? Either way, if you can describe the trouble you're having, and what difficulty level you're playing on, that'd be helpful.

And personally, the offense I play is a ground-heavy pro-style offense. I rarely have more than two receivers on the field, as I'm usually in an I-Form with a tight end on the field. I'm using short and medium passing game with big possession type receivers in order to keep the defense honest on my ground game.

But it's not necessary to run the ball very often at all in order to maintain a successful passing game. When you're passing the ball more often, you do need two things though.
1) A good quarterback. The coverage will tend to be significantly better, and you'll rarely find the WIDE open guy in a pass-heavy offense. Your quarterback needs more arm strength, accuracy, and yes, awareness. Even human controlled quarterbacks need awareness. Better awareness impacts his ability to put the ball in a place for his receiver away from the defense.
2) A good familiarity with a LOT of pass plays. In a ground heavy offense where you run the ball 30 times and pass the ball 15 times, you can get away with only knowing about 5 different pass plays. And it can be something like 1 short pass play, 1 medium pass play, and 3 play action pass plays, and you'll be fine. Defense will be too worried about your run game that they won't often be able to pick your passing play call.
However, when you're air-heavy passing like 35 and running 10, you have to know a lot more passing plays. You need to be comfortable with 20 or more. And it needs to be a good variety, a good mix of plays. And you have to be confident in your QBs ability to scramble for at least 3-5 yards if need be.

[bigbails35]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pogo27

I haven't seen it too much yet and haven't gotten good at reading it yet, so I honestly can't tell you. There's only a slight difference between Cover 3 and Cover 6 however. Cover 6 just allows more space on one side of the field and less on the other. And the only time it's really important to read Cover 6 is when you're sending 4 receivers on fly routes. In this case, if the two deep covers are on the left and one is on the right, you might pump fake toward the farthest right WR to see if the safety on that side bites to him, and then quickly launch it to the closer guy on the right side (meanwhile ignoring the left side, because whichever guy you throw to will have at least 2 or 3 defenders on him by the time the ball gets there). Ultimately though, when you see Cover 3, Cover 4, or Cover 6, you should be throwing to your release valve guy or running for it yourself with your quarterback. As for those who post in this thread and still complain that the passing game is too hard, I have to ask, did you even read any of the posts in here? Or are you just adding a complaint that you think it's too hard, and you're not willing to put in the effort to make yourself a better passer? And for those of you who have read the posts and are still struggling, what is it, specifically that you're having the most difficulty with? Perhaps you can upload some replays of your bad pass plays and we can analyze them? Either way, if you can describe the trouble you're having, and what difficulty level you're playing on, that'd be helpful. And personally, the offense I play is a ground-heavy pro-style offense. I rarely have more than two receivers on the field, as I'm usually in an I-Form with a tight end on the field. I'm using short and medium passing game with big possession type receivers in order to keep the defense honest on my ground game. But it's not necessary to run the ball very often at all in order to maintain a successful passing game. When you're passing the ball more often, you do need two things though. 1) A good quarterback. The coverage will tend to be significantly better, and you'll rarely find the WIDE open guy in a pass-heavy offense. Your quarterback needs more arm strength, accuracy, and yes, awareness. Even human controlled quarterbacks need awareness. Better awareness impacts his ability to put the ball in a place for his receiver away from the defense. 2) A good familiarity with a LOT of pass plays. In a ground heavy offense where you run the ball 30 times and pass the ball 15 times, you can get away with only knowing about 5 different pass plays. And it can be something like 1 short pass play, 1 medium pass play, and 3 play action pass plays, and you'll be fine. Defense will be too worried about your run game that they won't often be able to pick your passing play call. However, when you're air-heavy passing like 35 and running 10, you have to know a lot more passing plays. You need to be comfortable with 20 or more. And it needs to be a good variety, a good mix of plays. And you have to be confident in your QBs ability to scramble for at least 3-5 yards if need be.

Thanks for the tips. I guess my problem personally is that I need to play on slow until I get used to reading defense this year. Also, has anyone noticed the cpu barely plays man D? I just saw man in a game for the first time that I can remember this year. Oh, and I did score using the tips from in here, so they really do help.

[StumpyJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by bigbails35

Thanks for the tips. I guess my problem personally is that I need to play on slow until I get used to reading defense this year. Also, has anyone noticed the cpu barely plays man D? I just saw man in a game for the first time that I can remember this year. Oh, and I did score using the tips from in here, so they really do help.

Yeah, is that normal in college ball? I can count the times I've seen man D on one hand with four amputated digits.