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

[Hellisan]

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

Great opening win against a good team, looking forward to seeing how the title defense goes for you.

A little late to the running back debate, but man that is a tough decision you have to make with a rather deep stable of guys this year. I have had success with both shorter speed guys like you have now in Goodman and Brown, but in later years with UConn I ran almost exclusively with 210-pound bruising backs and they provided a real nice balance for our more pass-oriented attack. That said, I have concerns about Goodman's ability to run between the tackles.

I like Becton the best as his stats are solid all across the board, but I think you are justified in giving the other guys chances first. RB by committee (Lloyd as feature, Goodman spell/slot? and Norton goalline/3DRB?) might be an option for now just to feel things out, unless Lloyd gave you enough reason to start him after the opening week. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback on the running back discussion, yes, it was a difficult decision figuring out who to start, and then I was surprised how fast I went away from it. We didn't kick Goodman to the curb after game one (spoiler alert) and he definitely bounces back in a big way in game two. If it weren't Iowa State, I wouldn't feel so comfortable giving that away, I think they were ranked #116. They did give us a game for a half! Lloyd continues to look awesome. I tend to judge the players not by how their ratings look but how they play (We probably all do) but with him there seems to be a big gap. Other than the speed, which looks about right, I went back to my roster and was like, "that's all?" with most of those ratings. He plays better than those.

Another random thought, but NCAA stands out for me as being a game that I think has a lot going on behind the scenes - like unique hidden ratings or code determining how they act in scenarios. I swear when this guy scores a TD, a lot of times he does this Vader march basically where he's just shoulders square marching at the camera. Got a few pics of it already. He seems to be the next photogenic player that just makes crazy things happen and you have to take a picture of it.

Thanks for the kind words! And as far as real teams / fictional teams, I've always been the opposite... I think it's just from growing up in the 80s when no sports games had official licenses... and you were always playing as the New York Generics vs San Fran 69ers or whatever it was. Back then I cared more about my C64 teams then I did any real teams... I haven't touched Madden in a few years, but the first thing I do is simulate 10 years into the future to remove all the "real" players and relocate a bunch of teams to the alternate cities. I've always enjoyed removing myself from any baggage that comes with real players / teams and just getting lost in my own goofball world. All that said, I'm happy that you made an exception and enjoyed the first few pages of my thread. I'm happily following along here and it looks like the Hawkeyes are already in title defense mode.

I love the tradition of the game so much. When somebody takes a team that I don't know anything about and "learns me" about it, I really enjoy that. But there are exceptions to every rule, glad to be on board.

I always love seeing Georgia Tech take a loss.

Do you normally run the ball 40+ times a game or was that just your strategy in this game.

It wasn't really a strategy per se, but we do have a deep group of backs this year. When Eddie Allen didn't appear to be on his game it was just an easy call to let them keep doing what they were doing. Just trying to be flexible, and of course it played really well with the defense we were playing which was largely good.

Thanks guys.

[Hellisan]

2021 Game 2 - #7 Iowa at Iowa State - The Battle for the Cy-Hawk Trophy

UH OH - Khayman Chia breaks through the tackle for one of three sacks


Chia breaks through again, showing off the (not perfect) collision and object detection as he swung around and - where his leg was - hit against the blocker.


Clockwise from top: Goodman, Goodman, and Goodman, just doing things. McIntyre was on fire in the first half, powering through Tyris Wyckoff in the backfield to pick up a huge third down conversion on 3rd and 14. Brandon Butler celebrates a sack. Joe Gibson picks off his second pass in as many games.


The Lloyd show. The combination of size and speed grabs your attention.

[moose141]

Re: 2021 Game 2 - #7 Iowa at Iowa State - The Battle for the Cy-Hawk Trophy

This is separate from just looking at the actual games themselves, but I just have to point out that I absolutely love your boxscores and recaps. I love how everyone that reports seems to have their own style, and I absolutely love your recaps utilizing the old newspaper style boxscore and stats on the right side, and then the quantity and quality of images that you always have from the game recaps are awesome! Just wanted to make a note of that. Also, do you use a particular site to create some of the picture collages that you post? Or just creating the collage yourself in photoshop or something similar?

To the two games, stellar performances from your defense so far! Obviously, it's hard to grade the defense on the option because that's a unique team to face that you won't really deal with the rest of the way, but holding any team in NCAA 14 under 300 yards like you did against Iowa State is always an accomplishment worth celebrating! Great wins, and I love the balance that you're getting out of the offense. Of course Eddie Allen is a stud and can make plays with both his arm and his feet, but it's good to see that you have a nice stable of running backs that can be leaned on when you need them, especially when you can ride a hot hand. You still planning on rolling with running back by committee?

[OldHossRadbourn]

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

Looks like Llyod could be that "dude" for you. I'd just make him the starter. Seems like you might have a Jonathan Taylor type in your midst if you just hand him the rock.

[Hellisan]

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

This is separate from just looking at the actual games themselves, but I just have to point out that I absolutely love your boxscores and recaps. I love how everyone that reports seems to have their own style, and I absolutely love your recaps utilizing the old newspaper style boxscore and stats on the right side, and then the quantity and quality of images that you always have from the game recaps are awesome! Just wanted to make a note of that. Also, do you use a particular site to create some of the picture collages that you post? Or just creating the collage yourself in photoshop or something similar?

To the two games, stellar performances from your defense so far! Obviously, it's hard to grade the defense on the option because that's a unique team to face that you won't really deal with the rest of the way, but holding any team in NCAA 14 under 300 yards like you did against Iowa State is always an accomplishment worth celebrating! Great wins, and I love the balance that you're getting out of the offense. Of course Eddie Allen is a stud and can make plays with both his arm and his feet, but it's good to see that you have a nice stable of running backs that can be leaned on when you need them, especially when you can ride a hot hand. You still planning on rolling with running back by committee?

Thanks mate, I have always loved the ability to sort of look back and forth while reading a report and that's why I set it up like that, glad it works for you too. As for the collages, yes, here is the site I use to make them. They would take me hours to do in photoshop:

https://www.fotojet.com/

You just hit "make a collage" and then photogrid.

Defense looks really solid, I love how Gibson looks at one corner spot in the early going, and Halloway is locking down the other side. To have some kind of a rush at least on one side of the line has been nice too. We could really use another defensive end, and that's something I think we're going to work on hard in recruiting ;-)

For now, the RB will still be by committee.

Looks like Llyod could be that "dude" for you. I'd just make him the starter. Seems like you might have a Jonathan Taylor type in your midst if you just hand him the rock.

I want to keep mixing them up, but I am weeding out the guys that don't look that great. Becton was a personal favorite just by looking at his ratings, but what do you do when you go to run over a defender with a big back and they just get popped time after time... As much as Lloyd seems to play above his ratings, Becton plays under them. So he's moving to the back of the rotation, which for now is going to be Goodman, Lloyd, Norton, and Brown. Since Goodman returns kickoffs and punts and tires more quickly, Lloyd will have a very competitive number of carries overall. Thanks for checking in bro!

[Hellisan]

2021 Game 3 - Rutgers at #6 Iowa








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

Total b**** move on my part. I could taste the shutout. Game previews will start up again now and then finally will get to some around the nation updates after the week 4 game. It will be our first trip to Indiana.

[moose141]

Re: 2021 Game 3 - Rutgers at #6 Iowa

Big game! I can understand feeling the frustration with losing the shutout, they are pretty near impossible to get in NCAA. At the very least it gives you a nice storyline to bring up for a little while anyways haha. Am I going crazy or does your recap cut off halfway through? It says about the score being 30-0 and then it goes into the pictures. Just wanted to let you know about that, because obviously this game doesn't need too much of a recap haha, just reading 58-7 as the scoreline is as much of a recap as is needed.

[Nunyerbiz]

Re: 2021 Game 3 - Rutgers at #6 Iowa

Just wanted to let you know about that, because obviously this game doesn't need too much of a recap haha, just reading 58-7 as the scoreline is as much of a recap as is needed.

Russian.... err I mean... Rutgers hackers removed the 2nd half of that recap in a vain attempt to minimize their embarrassment.

[Deuce2223]

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

Not going to lie, I have ran several plays in the final seconds of a game just to try something I normally don't run and it works out into points. I also will attempt 50+ yd FG's if the opportunity comes up because I want to have practice in case the situation comes up where I need a 56 yarder for a win in another game.

[OldHossRadbourn]

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

Lloyd out there EATING

[Hellisan]

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

Big game! I can understand feeling the frustration with losing the shutout, they are pretty near impossible to get in NCAA. At the very least it gives you a nice storyline to bring up for a little while anyways haha. Am I going crazy or does your recap cut off halfway through? It says about the score being 30-0 and then it goes into the pictures. Just wanted to let you know about that, because obviously this game doesn't need too much of a recap haha, just reading 58-7 as the scoreline is as much of a recap as is needed.

It's actually missing just a single line where I wrapped it up with something akin to and they continued to kick butt. I screwed that up. I noticed multiple typos after you pointed it out, thanks a ton. (no really, thanks, I'm gonna fix it when I get the time).

Russian.... err I mean... Rutgers hackers removed the 2nd half of that recap in a vain attempt to minimize their embarrassment.

LOLOLOL

Not going to lie, I have ran several plays in the final seconds of a game just to try something I normally don't run and it works out into points. I also will attempt 50+ yd FG's if the opportunity comes up because I want to have practice in case the situation comes up where I need a 56 yarder for a win in another game.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. For the most part, we all have our schtick, Nunyer's is the hilarity factor, I try to be pretty realistic. This team might be getting on the precipice of being too good for that, but we'll see the league schedule has always given us challenges year in, year out. Last year had several lucky moments allowing us to get to the end. Anyway, it was such a fun play to see, a 2-way player coming down with the ball between two guys like that, but then I had to explain it :uhoh:

Lloyd out there EATING

He's pretty, pretty good. :-)

Many thanks to you guys that check in on an old man like me from time to time

[djp73]

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

Really great start to the season. What are your goals and predictions for the season? Do you think coach Clark will stay at Iowa for the remainder of his career?

[Hellisan]

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

Really great start to the season. What are your goals and predictions for the season? Do you think coach Clark will stay at Iowa for the remainder of his career?

Hmm, I don't have any predictions, but our goal is to win a second title in a row. I think that with having a senior QB like Eddie Allen at the helm (who so far is just laying in the cut managing the offense until we need him to take over and beat a team). As for whether Coach Clark would move on, I highly doubt it. I've really fallen in love with Iowa actually, I root for the team in everything from football to basketball to baseball and gymnastics - I could see some scenario where Clark retires, and then takes a year off or something, and THEN takes a new job at some much smaller school, but that would be unlikely and a long way off.

Thanks for the great question and checking in.

Lloyd out there EATING

Another thought that popped into my head, a lot of what seems to make running backs good and not good (and there's a lot in NCAA 14 which makes it so fun for me) is the idea of whether they can navigate traffic well. It just seems like some players do this:



And some players don't. And in that picture you can see he's got the ball in one hand and his other hand on the blocker in front of him, following the guy ready to move either way. The other #22 we had at running back did that too. Others who aren't as successful don't seem to do that and fall down in traffic more easily.

[Deuce2223]

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

Iowa need Coach Clark in my dynasty. This is the 4th time in 12 seasons that Iowa has offered Coach Vader the HC job, and I have to keep turning them down. They did have a few years of success but overall they are struggling to find the right fit for them.

I did find it pretty funny that this past off-season they fired their HC and Iowa State hired him to take over their program despite the fact he was coming off a 3-8 season.

[Hellisan]

2021 - Week 5 Preview



Going to get more into the commentary on game previews beginning next week.

All I'll say for now is, Desmond Kilpatrick has my attention. I'm glad our quarterback isn't named Patrick. Regardless of the name, we need to find a way to mitigate the pressure he can get off the edge or he could wreck the game. On defense, I'm concerned about the running back tandem. The 6'4" backup seems like the type that could give me problems.