NCAA Football 14 Developers Discuss Running the Option

[Steve_OS]

EA Sports recently sat down with three NCAA Football 14 developers (Larry Richart, Michael Scantlebury and Clint Oldenburg) to get their insights on the improved option game in NCAA Football 14.

Quote:

Quarterback decision-making has improved tremendously in terms of their reads and when to give up the ball. We trained the CPU to pitch at better times and situations, so that their plays were more effective. We wanted to get CPU plays outside and around the corner more, so players will try and get up field quicker this year. Players will recognize where defenders are, and cut at more appropriate times. It’s pretty deadly now, and the computer is more confident in the way they call the read option. In previous years, the defensive player assigned to the pitch man would just run to the player that was diving in the option. But when we watched film, we noticed that the player would follow the pitch man more often. Without that improvement, it was tough to truly replicate the option game. The spread option is truly dynamic in real life and now, we think our game finally has that.

[harlemkiid149]

The problem with the read option that EA has yet to fix is defensive placement when the d-end bites on the play. What I mean by that is on Madden/NCAA 13 when running the read option you would see Qb's break off 30yard runs when the d-end followed the tailback on read option plays. The problem is not all D-ends bite as hard as EA portrays them,particularly in college the elite teams teach their d-ends not to bite extremely hard on read option plays. What you'll see now is d-ends instead of running all the way to the tailback they will slide over giving the illusion that they're staying home on the Qb but they're actually trying to shorten the gap on the tailback assuming the Qb hands it off and it's up to the QB to see the d-end has slide over too far and the best read is to keep it. I have two examples here,both are inverted veer read option plays and you'll see that the d-ends didn't bite so hard but rather got caught "drifting" and the Qb read their "eyes" not necessarily where they were lined up on the read.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtIU1zv2InU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeSV7Y-14js

[goillini03]

I just hope by, "We trained the CPU to pitch at better times and situations, so that their plays were more effective," it does not mean that we will see the CPU QB heaving pitches behind them while falling down. Always busting big plays when no QB could complete those type of pitches. This always irked me in the past.

[Tonestarxx]

the new improvements will make running the ball fun again,

[Roland44]

Quote: Originally Posted by Tonestarxx

the new improvements will make running the ball fun again,

I hope so... can't wait for it...

[tigerfan2]

A lot of people in my dynasty felt that the read option was too powerful last year. Does anyone know if this is still the case?

[Gosens6]

Quote: Originally Posted by tigerfan2

A lot of people in my dynasty felt that the read option was too powerful last year. Does anyone know if this is still the case?

Oh man, you guys are in for a treat this year if you thought last year was too powerful..

[tigerfan2]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gosens6

Oh man, you guys are in for a treat this year if you thought last year was too powerful..

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. I personally didn't have a problem with it, but some people complained. They typically ran a pro style attack though and thought everybody should have numbers like they did.