MMQB, SGN Edition: The 2032 Stevens Cup

[Aston]

2032 Stevens Cup

Today, we're going to take a sneak peak behind the curtains at both the Dakota Totems and Utah Bees operations as the teams prepare for the OSFL championship game.

Foosball & I have decided to break down our respective plans of attack, and I hope that'll make this some interesting following for everyone not playing this week.

Utah: Defense

Utah runs a 3-4 that keys off on sheer pass rush ability from its front four, adequate linebacking, and ballhawking coverage built around great safety play.

CB Jerry Drake has to be MVP of this defense. We rely on him to match up to the opponent's top receiver and don't worry about it. This is a guy who breaks up a lot of passes for us and lets us be secure in calling different coverages.

Behind him at CB are the trio of Bobby Plantilla, Quinn Robinette, and Calvin Dawkins. Because of this makeup, Utah has been a primarily 2-deep M2M team this season. Robin has immense cohesion value, but his skills have really waned. Against teams with a second serious threat at receiver, Robin will only come on in the Nickel and Dime. Against Dakota, Robin will only be coming on the Dime. Dawkins and Plantilla are in the exact same mold: hard-hitting, excellent man coverage corners with good hands. Dawkins has better bars, but Plantilla has turned in a far better season and took over the role. I believe this is because Plantilla is 5'10, whereas Dawkins is 5'7.

The safeties are automatic. The two starters both turned in PD above 88.0%, and their backups are young, but talented creepers.

Utah's 75-sack man Ike Arias is on injured reserve, meaning that pass rush we key everything off of is down a starter. Will Tyler's making his fourth start at WLB in his place, but has really struggled. With Tyler at WLB, Floyd Follette is starting at SLB. This gives us a great coverage/run-stopping presence on that edge, but it takes away any possibility of blitzing from Base or Nickel...which makes the front four's work even more important.

Timothy Flynn and Dixon Goldade will man the inside spots. Flynn will come off in the Nickel/Dime packages, but play SILB in the base, because he's not fully developed at WILB. In the previous game against Kalispel, Riddick Schulz started at WILB, but Flynn will get the nod instead because of Dakota's run game. He provides slightly more cohesion and a lot more run stopping.

Schulz, a coverage and pass rush beast for most of his career, will back up at both SLB and WLB, while Gary McIntyre - another capable, creeping Yuma creeper who was released this year - will play backup WILB.

In the Dime, it will be Will Tyler at WLB and Floyd Follette at SILB. Follette is the best coverage 'backer we have, and it shows in his performance (81.2 PD% this year; 3 defenses and 2 interceptions), both this year and across his career. Tyler is our best pass rush option and will blitz 100% of the time out of the dime. We do this with our WLBs because in the dime, there are only 3 base rushers without blitzing. We trust our six DBs to handle it.

Against some teams, we have to play dime on 2nd down. A lot of times, these are short passing situations, so I'll go, say, 0-15-0-85 to be in pass aggressive dime 85% of the time, and then set it to 0% dime blitzes on 1st & 2nd down only. I think blitzing the dime 'backer makes the most sense against long passes, as short passes beat the rush more anyways.

It's a lot of musical chairs at LB, as it has been all year, with no true standouts and the best of the bunch now serving as a pass rusher only (Tyler).

In the goal line formation, we've been bringing on reserve CB Scottie Finley to play opposite Drake. Finley has an 84 INT bar, but it's his BnR ability that prompts this, giving us the best BnR guys we have on deck in 1-deep BnR situations. In those cases we're typically expecting a run play anyway, though, so an alternative is Robin, who offers secondary cohesion. I'd think about putting a run-stopping corner here, if I had one and depending on how confident I was that we wouldn't see a pass play against it.

To be continued...

[Sharkn20]

Great warm up lines!! It'll be an amazing last game!

[Aston]

Scouting Dakota: Offense

Brian Douglas is a QB that could've been ours, but instead he's quarterbacking the Totems in an OSFL bowl. He's a talented guy with the only clear drawback being a weak Read Defense bar...something I'm not sure I can take advantage of.

Normally, a weak RD bar will cause Utah to find every conceivable excuse to throw double coverages at a quarterback. With Dakota's Herb Newman, Malcolm Rowland, and Artie Lovejoy, it's not clear that this is going to be a good idea.

Rowland is the most dangerous of the bunch on deep routes, so in extreme passing situations, we'll DC him (strong side) 100% and match him up with Plantilla in the dime. In all other situations, we're just going to rely on our CBs: Drake on Rowland, and Plantilla on Newman. The idea is that Drake's BnR ability will keep Rowland from being too involved, and Plantilla's superlative man coverage gives us the best shot at breaking up passes thrown to Newman.

With Dakota's multitude weapons, it's awfully hard to throw an extra DB at any one guy without being in the dime.

The D.J. Moss / Will Duckworth tandem is formidable. Moss, the lead blocker, has made 11/22 on his key run blocks this year, which is simply phenomenal. Our own fullback is pretty talented, and is 1-for-8. The Totems make good use of their FBs, though, and Duckworth is a machine that will take special care to try and stop. The trouble is doing so without making yourself vulnerable to the far-more-damaging effects of a long passing game.

For our part, we're going to assume that the Dakota we see is the Dakota we get. This is going to be a gamble that'll go very badly if Dakota reverses a few trends, but their set of weapons on offense is forcing us to roll the dice and commit hard to one side.


Utah's bowl GP on defense.

Unlike Utah, Dakota does not run a PAV and opts for a more even split on 1st & 10 (GPA: 55-21-23 in the first half). Typically we play a conservative "regular pass" defense on 1st & 10 with a mixture of 2-deep man and 3-deep zone, and usually about 40-60 on playcalls. Here, because of both Duckworth and the higher-than-usual running %, we're going with 54-46 instead, to keep ILB Flynn - who isn't terrible in either man or zone coverage - on the field more. (Against the heavy PAV teams, we'll sometimes pull out a 55-0-10-35 or 50-0-10-40 aggressive defense. Dakota doesn't throw long enough for us to do that here, and even if they did, we'd still worry enough about Duckworth against the dime to stay in 'normal' defenses).

Where things get interesting is on 2nd down. We want to play a balanced game where we don't stay in the same coverages all the time, and this means finding spots to play 1-deep. Dakota went 56:22 run:pass on 2nd & 1-5 this season. Combined, it's a situation we might expect to face a handful of times a game, and over 70% of that handful we're expecting to be run. Our response is to stack the box and play 1-deep. On 100/0/0/0, it's 100% 1-deep BnR; on 71/0/29/0, it's split 50-50 between 1-deep BnR and 1-deep man.

I think we also caught Dakota going run-heavy with negligible long passing on 1st & 5, which is why we're going 1-deep 71-29 there. Of course, a better thing to do is to not commit offsides.

Dakota's passing heavy on 2nd & 10, and if it weren't for Duckworth, we might go 0-15-0-85 here. Although if it weren't for an ample amount of long passes, we would be going 0-15-85-0. The Totems make up for their gunshy on 1st & 10 with some 'get it over with, move the chains' shots on 2nd & 10. 0-15-45-40 is our compromise: some blitzes, some making sure Duckworth doesn't do too much. The goal is to keep them in 3rd and 6+ as much as possible, because below that, I don't like our odds. Fortunately, I think due to the long passing, Dakota has a pretty low completion rate and YPA compared to most teams on 2nd & 10.

In "passing situation" defense here (61 to 85% pass + pass aggr), we're playing 2-deep man 60% of the time and 3-deep zone 40%. CBs Plantilla and Dawkins, both exceptional man corners, will be on the field 85% of the time — all the Nickel and Dime plays. Normally, we reserve "passing situation" playcalls (15-85, etc) for rarer situations, and play exclusively 3-deep for maximum pass-stopping effectiveness. This year, our makeup of man cover corners allows me to comfortably call this on 2nd & 10 when I want to, knowing that I'm still fielding a very strong cover defense on 3rd & 5 0-15-0-85. In other words, I'm not playing man here just to avoid being in 3-deep too much. I'm playing man because it's the team's strength.

3rd & 2 to 3rd & 3 will be a tricky area for us. We're employing no-blitz nickel (0-15-85-0), which again puts us at 60% 2-Man and 40% 3-Zone. I'm good with this because again, the corners will be Drake (stud), Plantilla (M2M stud), and Dawkins in the nickel (M2M stud). Duckworth would be automatic if we went to the dime, and though they run him rarely, I want to prevent that. Conceding on 3rd down is very bad practice, and besides, you never know when a team will decide to do something radically different in these down-and-distances. This is when coaches are looking at the defenses and their own guys' 3rd-down bars and taking stock. Dakota's got a wealth of options.

Once we hit 3rd & 5, I'm comfortable that Dakota is not going to run the ball enough to gameplan around.

Once it gets to 3rd & 6 and beyond, Utah is going 55-45 3-deep/4-deep and 100% dime, Tyler-blitzing pass aggressive, with double coverage on WR Malcolm Rowland (primarily covered by Plantilla). This is going all out to stop the long pass, and it's what Utah does best. The entire defense is built around being able to stop offenses when it counts.


Utah D results, 2032, on 3rd & 10.

If I could help it, I'd play 100% 3-deep on 3rd & 7, 20%-80% split on 3rd & 10, and 100% 4-deep beyond that. But such fine tuning doesn't exist.

Final Analysis
Dakota's achilles heel on offense is their line. This was a superb unit in the regular season, giving up a 3rd-lowest 17.2 PR%, but without 76/76 C Jeremy Register, it's a different looking unit. As a whole, they're adequate in pass blocking at best, and while they are a good road-grading group, Utah's front four matches up quite favorably inside and out.

Defensive end Ted Kau will be rushing from the LDE spot for this game, while he was situated at RDE most of the year. This will pit him against the weaker Wendell Hayes, and Utah's strongest rushers Lincoln Cleaver (RDE) and Will Tyler (WLB) will work against Dakota's strongest linemen in Dustin Chorak (LG) and Sean Burton (LT).

If that matchup in the trenches goes in Utah's favor, it will be tough for Douglas to match scores against the Bees. The Totems might be best suited to lean on Duckworth and their run game, and try to get Douglas as many manageable short-passing situations as he can. Dakota is a threat to convert 3rd-and-short on anyone with their options of power running and short passing. They'll need to make the most of a few long shots downfield, though, because that's still how you wind up with scoring drives.

Of course, if Dakota can lower the #LegionOfBoom on this record-setting offense of Utah, all of that is moot. And, why not? They've done it before....(tbc)

[Matt]

Very nice inside read into why you've won 42 straight Stevens Cups.

[Aston]

Scouting Dakota: Defense

Dakota has the league's 2nd-best pass rush this season (after Utah), with 27.1 PR%. Because while the interior of their 3-4 is very unimpressive, LDE A.J. Hassett and WLB Amos Irwin could scarcely be more superlative. No joke, these guys are going to give us a lot of trouble. They are simply meaner, nastier, and more athletic than anybody we can throw against them - and we have the best offensive line in the league at pass blocking.

SLB Cole Motz is going to be a liability. The former Bee, if he makes the start, ought to have trouble competing against either of the Utah tight ends. That's a matchup we hope Boone will exploit.

The inside LBs are capable, especially vs. the run. Without Josh Clovis and our inside running game, that's a battle we expect to lose. In fact, running against Dakota would appear to be a pointless exercise (notwithstanding RDE Everett Lindsay's overall status as a liability of all kinds. Lindsay's only made a few starts, however, so he's not their ideal plan).

What I don't like to see is the quality of the secondary. CB Chris Hutchins is a terror to opposing QBs, and safety Cory Maiher is just about all you could possibly ask for in the outfield. There's good talent here overall, especially with rookie 1st rounder Claude Race coming on in as Nickelback. The Bees have good receivers, but this isn't a secondary that will simply bend over and take it.

Defensively, Dakota is incredible on 3rd & 10. Despite playing a even split of pass normal and pass aggressive, opponents are only averaging 4.7 ypa. Even the best of offenses will want to avoid staring down that kind of a situation.

Whereas Utah is a man coverage team — or more accurately, a mixture but leaning towards M2M — Dakota is a heavily vested 3-deep zone team that uses almost exclusively 2-deep Bump-and-Run otherwise. The Totems are in a 3-deep about 50% of the time, with 2-deep BnR comprising near 38%, and 2-deep M2M the remainder. It's a team that could probably run a lot of 4-deep capably, but chooses not to.

The strong preference towards 2-deep bump over 2-deep man is also interesting, because the Totems are not particularly unbalanced skill-wise to either. On the year, the Totems are allowing 55.9% completions, 5.9 YPA, and 43.7% success with 2-deep BnR, but just 44.4%, 4.72 YPA, and 31.6% success with 2-deep Man (albeit a much smaller sample size). If anything, though, it seems the Totems, leaning in particular on the man cover skills of Chris Hutchins, should be running a lot more 2-deep man.

The Totems aren't a particularly successful run-stopping team, allowing a 25th-ranked 4.40 YPC (just ahead of Utah, which sits at #26). This is a team that, even considering playing safe against teams trying to come from behind, is in pass aggressive an awful lot on 1st & 10. 1st down running appears to be their primary weak point; on 2nd & 10, going to the Nickel doesn't appear to hurt at all (In contrast, Utah is a solid step stouter vs. the run on 1st & 10, but significantly more yielding on 2nd & 10 and 3rd & 6+).

So, there were two possibilities here; one, to keep on doing what we normally do, and two, to call our shot and target that 1st & 10 weakness vs the run. We ended up going with the latter, more interesting option, and it's resulted in this final GP:



What it boiled down to was a running game that is quite poor needing a place to notch carries, and a passing game that I'm worried will result in sacks and INTs if it tries to go long too much.

By toning down the long passing significantly on 1st & 10, this Utah gameplan tries not to keep up Boone's gaudy YPA, but to keep the Bees on schedule and out of trouble. On 3rd & short, I like our chances of converting. Any time a sack or injury does knock us behind the eight ball though, there's little point in trying to claw our way back on the ground. Our running backs are quite prone to average under 2 YPC. So, we're saving a significant chunk of our typical bread and butter, the Long Pass, for a Rainy Day scenario.

The almost total lack of short passing on 2nd & 1-3 is due to the almost automatic short pass on 3rd & 1-3. If the first try misses, at least it won't be a similar play twice in a row.

I'll be especially pleased if Dakota comes out 100% run aggressive on 3rd & 1, but it's not like I've much of a choice. We don't have the skills to run effectively when we want to.

3rd & 4-5 will be interesting. At this point Dakota is full-on Nickel/3-deep almost always (3rd & 2-3 are rather noncomittal). Teams are running quite well on this (13-85, 6.54 ypc, 46.2% success) and fairing poorly passing (12/22, 54.5%, 4.68 YPA and 39.1% success). With extra early-down short passing, rainy-day short passing, and third-and-short short passing compared to usual, this seemed like a good place to trot out some more run plays. If we do pass, the 61-39 % puts us into our running formations, which loads up on 2TE sets. That's TE Artie Summers, TE Edwin Blades, and WR Bob Hansen on the field with FB Randall Beecroft blocking. I like how this scenario stacks up, run or pass, against Dakota's 3-deep Nickel package.

3rd & 7+ is going to be tough. These situations will find passing down back J.R. Talley on the field, but his decent breakaway speed doesn't make him a huge threat to run, particularly against a defense that isn't going all the way dime or employing the 4-deep. If we're backed into this corner, we'll just have to hope for the best. If we face a 3rd & 20, though, as a nod to Dakota's defense, we'll start playing field position. Hopefully get Talley a 10-yard gain and then punt.

Ultimately, this is a slightly more clock-chewing gameplan than I typically use, and is a step away from the usual (and apparently very effective) philosophy of more big plays = more points. It could really work against us if we can't stop Dakota and they manage to limit the number of possessions Utah gets in this game. But if we can stay ahead on the scoreboard, it also starts squeezing Dakota's dual-threat monster in a hole it can't get out of.

[Aston]

Utah: Offense



Without Clovis at RB, we're bad at running inside or out, but worse at running in. Anyway, in 2k7 the default is to run out when you can do neither well. Dakota's interior DL being bad, our interior OL being good, and our RT Artie Samuels being a pretty bad run blocker is why we don't go say, 20-20-5-5-5-5-20-20.

Dakota doesn't blitz, as in at all. With RB Lynch being so good at blitz pickup, we're going to keep him back there just a little bit to help with their base rush, but I'm not even sure that's what those pass block percentage boxes are for. So that's a total guess.

The passing distances are pretty par for the course for this year. We're able to throw it deep so there's no sense in not trying:


Utah team stats, 2032. Long passing's pretty off the charts ;)

I'm worried about shying a little bit away from our biggest strength offensively, which is bombing the hell out of secondaries with WRs Bruce Perkins, Bob Hansen and Ray Mansker. Just get the sense that against Dakota, a few of those miss and the game slips away. The roster is overall superior to Dakota's, so the plan is to lean on that. It's not necessary to average 12 YPA through the air just to win.

Blades & Summer at TE, as mentioned, should carve themselves a nice little piece of the midfield away from the Dakota linebackers. These guys are catching almost 75% of their targets, so if it turns into a short passing match, I hope Boone will turn to them often.

The OL is fully healthy again and one of the most capable we've ever had. Today's lineup will be LT - Reese, LG - Giles, C - Thomas, RG - Thingvold, RT - Samuels. We have two starting-quality backups in Antonio Mitting and Glenn Hammond, whom we've started at various positions this year depending on the matchup. A lot of options with this line, trading off strength and run blocking for pass blocking and cohesion.

Worth noting that OT Max Reese has had a monster year, shuffling between mostly either tackle spot, and occasionally guard. 21.0 KRBO% and going 30/97 (30.9%) with 3 pancakes and 0 sacks allowed. That's the guy who is going to have to hold his own against Amos Irwin, the likes of which we just haven't seen this year.

Unless you give the Utah OL fits and get to the QB, this is a passing game that's impossible to deal with. In the single-back there are three route runners with speed to burn and a TE who is faster than most WRs. In 2 TE sets there's two of the best TEs in the game. In the base set you have one of those TEs playing fullback. In SB-4WR we bring on Shane Littlefield and his 76 BPR.

Unless the opposing defense is stacked with coverage LBs, the best bet appears to be staying in the Nickel, at least. Boone has low-ish Read Defense, but I'm not sure who you would cover. Probably take your chances DCing Hansen 100% (by 'Top WR' -- switching FL and SE between formations is something I would do, but it looks like I haven't this year), but only on long passing downs -- maybe say, 1st & 10 and 3rd & long. Overall I'm not convinced doubling against Utah helps.

Fortunately, the offense overall is human. We'll insist on feeding the backs carries, but sometimes the run game is shut down wholesale. In a pretty good game otherwise for him against Los Alamos in which Boone went 2/8 on long passes, and the entire offense sputtered to a halt and the Bees were easily dismantled. Of course, that's the kind of thing we're trying to eliminate as a possibility in the bowl.

Special Teams

We deactivated LB/ST Terrell McDonald for this game, since he's been replaced by a superior player and equal ST'er in Riddick Schulz.

Otherwise, it's the same. 11 guys are activated for special teams, one more than strictly necessary: 1 RB, 1 FB, 1 TE, 2 WR, 3 LB, 1 CB, 2 S. This has been one of the top ST units in the league yet again, with good ST bars and great returners, so we're not too worried.

We're reigning in K Darryl Blakely a little bit down to 54 from 59 on field goal range. His leg isn't as good as Troy Parrish's, so at a certain point in a game this big, we want to play field position. Dakota isn't a quick strike offense, anyway: the more plays they run, the more likely they hit familiars in the second half.

Final Final Analysis

Going to play this bowl a little differently than we have most of the season. Both teams were top-3 in both points scored and points allowed this year, and I figure the way it's going to give is this will be a close, low-scoring affair with a lot of ball control and tough D. Every long pass, and there won't be too many of them between both of us compared to what we've seen in the regular season, is going to really count and make a difference.

But then, who knows what'll happen once the engine runs. Could be totally different and we really have no idea. Only some of all this gameplanning is knowing how the game works; most of it is guessing at what would make sense. All those numbers entered into boxes might not translate at all how I intended, and even if it does, the dice might throw it all out the window.

I look forward to going back and seeing all the things I got wrong. Gonna be fun. Might have to watch my first game on sole all season.

GL, Foos! And, your turn

[Guest]

Good to see my read of Dakota's offense was spot on with yours. Trouble is I didn't have the man power to make an effective enough gameplan to shut him down like I did with Boston where I went pass aggressive almost the entire game.

Stupid Duckworth scared me too much.

[Guest]

haha that solevision part is funny, Nutah, because I watched every game on Sole until I got my new computer last week. I only looked at the box scores since Week 17! Definitely watching this one though.

This probably won't be as fascinating or in-depth as Nutah's take was, but there's a reason why Nutah has been to eleventy straight Bowls and this will be my third in OSFL. (I'm 0-2 in Bowls in FOFL, and 2-3 in Conference Championships IIRC.) Plus, I'm technically on the clock and getting paid right now, so I have to pay some attention to that! In an attempt to get this up as soon as possible for OSFL spectators, I'm going to give it a shot.

Dakota Offense

The offensive is unfortunately going to be boring as hell. The most successful Dakota passing offense of all time this year has been the most plain, vanilla offense I've ever run. I decided that with my 1st year starter Douglas I better keep it simple, and also reminded myself that my best offenses with Parrish were very boring offenses too. When I got creative with him, bad things often happened. It just seems to be the Dakota Way.

If any of you know me in FOFL, I've had fairly good, aggressive PAV-styled offenses in that league. That is the kind of offense I prefer to run (or just balls out passing, which I've NEVER had the personnel to run.), but I've never had the right personnel to do it in Dakota. Walt Johnson could've been that guy, but I didn't have good enough pass protection for him and let's face it, despite all of his good points he throws a few interceptions. Interceptions have been killing Dakota for years. So, for this Dakota team, all we want is a QB who doesn't turn the ball over so our defense can win.





Recognize this offense? It's a mostly unedited version of the "Balanced" offense from Ben's library. Unlike other seasons, I ran basically the same offense every week with minor tweaks. (Ted Pleasant often ran very run heavy offenses or plain ones, after some disastrous attempts to shoehorn him into a PAV style offense, but I'd change up gameplans depending on opponent.)

I've gotten creative vs Utah in the past and it didn't really work, although a short passing attack with Ted Pleasant seemed mildly effective in our last regular season matchup. This time we're just plowing right in with basically the same gameplan. Maybe it'll get me back to performing like 2022 when I didn't overthink things!

Some tweaks for this game include:

-More outside running for Duckworth. Aside from the fact that outside running is just better in this incarnation of FOF, Jeremy Register, our best OL is injured. Since he plays C I used a running attack that was balanced to hopefully take advantage of his superior blocking. This game we'll be leaning on the run blocking skills our of tackles, which aren't bad although not as superior as they used to be.

-TE & FB staying in to block 100% of the time. I believe Ted Pleasant took a pummeling last time in the bowl, so we're going to keep these guys in to block. I used a high pass blocking TE set to stay in 100% in my FOFL offense where I had a PAV style offense with a low sense rush QB, and it anecdotally seemed to help. My offensive line isn't exactly top of the line when it comes to pass protection, and I expect Utah will try to exploit this. Hopefully this will help a little bit. I don't think we'll miss Moss or Shepherd as pass receivers, we have plenty of talented WRs here.

-Selmon will be kicking the long ones because we drafted him in the 2nd round for chrissakes, and we can't be leaving any points on the field against Utah.

In general, on offense I tend to focus on what my team can do well and tweak it based on the strength of the other team. If I have a strong enough offense like I do with the Jackalopes in FOFL, though, I will just tend to mostly ignore what the opposing defense can do. I just dare them to stop me from what I do well.

Dakota Defense

Nutah, unsurprisingly, has a very good grasp on our core defensive concepts. Despite fielding some very good defenses, I tend to be conservative except in my cover-3 love, since I generally want to stop the pass above all else. I've loosened up a little over the years, but I'm still kind of an anti-Rex Ryan, which is funny, because I'm a Jets fan. I run lots of zone coverage without blitzing. I rely on talented pass rushers to get pressure anyway, which is more of a Jeff Fisher/Jim Schwartz kind of thing. But hey, that's enough real football, let's get back to fake football!

A funny thing happened on the way to the bowl game. Our long term starter at RCB, Leslie Troglia, suffered an injury in the championship game. He can still play but at diminished capacity. I made the decision to insert Claude Race, our little used #1 pick, as the starter. Since his zone coverage bar is low, I've switched all of my cover-3 to 2-deep M2M. I didn't even use much M2M if any until this year because I just prefer to be in cover-3 whenever I expect the pass. I've found that it's not that much weaker against short passing, and it's pretty good against long passing, as you can see from Nutah's stats on my defense. Stopping the long pass is the way to go in this version of FOF, so cover-3 is the obvious choice. I'm not a fan of ever using cover-4 in this version, since it doesn't seem that much better against long passes and it is more vulnerable to short passes.

Unfortunately, inserting Race into the starting role hurts my "cohesion monster" defense that I like to build, but I think having Race in there and his M2M coverage bar synergy with Hutchins justifies this move. All things considered I'd like two strong zone defenders who could play cover-3 all day vs Utah, but like Rumsfeld once noted, "You fight a war with the army you have."

I considered sprinkling in some anti-TE SSZ coverage to deal with the TE Blades, who Utah stole from me early one second round. My consolation prize was my FB DJ Moss, which isn't bad, but oh, the things I could've done with Blades! I decided against it, and if the TEs go berserk I'll regret it. Utah is right in that Motz would be a weakness against his TEs, but I only have Motz in for base sets that are run-oriented - otherwise Duane Alamar who is better at coverage will be in at SLB. If I could export again, I'd probably have Alamar in for base sets too. That would've been the wise thing to do.

As for double coverage, I decided to load up on Hansen, their most dangerous receiver, and hope the rest of the defense can handle their assignments. Their other receivers aren't chopped liver though and with the injury to Troglia I'm not sure how solid he'll be at nickel. I put the constantly underperforming Jumbo Raffray in at nickel, and I hope he finally lives up to his coverage bars. If we fail today on defense I suspect it will be against Utah's WR3/4 or his TEs.

We run a metric fuckton of BnR on defense and it should work well since Utah's keeping it short, but most of our BnR is for run defense sets and slight passing situations.

Anyway, without further ado, here's our defensive gameplan for Utah:



I start with Stelmack's gameplan analyzer for every matchup. Then I adjust it based on what I think is a good idea for each down and guess what an owner might try to do differently against me than he normally does. (Especially against a guy like Nutah.) Unfortunately, that has not worked well against Nutah in the recent past. This time, I just stuck with Utah's tendencies a little more than I usually do. I think when we won in 2022 against Utah I just ran a very vanilla, balanced D against Utah, not paying so much attention to Stelmack, but this Utah team is so much more talented I feel like I have to game the system just a little.

I went a little more Stelmack heavy than usual here, which is a gamble, because a lot of times you don't have that many plays run by the opposition at certain downs and distances. Since I need every edge I can get against Utah though I paid a little more attention to it.

One place I might get hurt is 3rd and 1 since I have 50% run aggressive there. I believe Nutah has put a bit of passing in there.

I'm using the Julio 40-10-10-40 setup on first down, which tends to be good against PAV and I run it more when I need an edge against a team. (Julio's theory, I believe, being that it's good to get someone in a 2nd and hopefully 3rd and long situation and kill a drive, even if you give up some plays on 1st and ten.) I used to play just as vanilla on 1st and Ten as I played everything else.

Last Will and Testament

I feel like I've been the underdog in every bowl match vs Utah, but I never felt as big of an underdog as I did in the first matchup which we won. Hopefully we pull some magic out of our hats again, and if we do, it will probably be in the form of Rowland in the passing game and on special teams. If we get smoked it'll be in the form of Blades, or Bees WRs not named Hansen. I think we've got a chance, but honestly, I don't feel our chances are as good as they were with our previous bowl team. Douglas seems to have plateau'd and while he is a good QB, he is not as good as I initially thought he was! He's not the kind of guy that carries a team on his back.

If we can keep this one close and play respectably I'll consider it a minor victory. Besides, it's only fair that we finish out this version of FOF with another Bees victory, right?

gl Nutah, hope it's a good game!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them and I'll try to answer them on break at work. It seems like that's the way it should work for the first official OSFL "Open Source Bowl!"

[Sharkn20]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5oIkGzzOwU

Come on fellas!!!!

Enjoy the last one!!!!

[Guest]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/69344/super_bowl_shuffle/

[Sharkn20]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/69344/super_bowl_shuffle/

Oh my Godness

[Guest]

Since his zone coverage bar is low, I've switched all of my cover-3 to 2-deep M2M.

This should be interesting as Nuts said you should play more M2M as you're more successful that way. Wonder if it'll play better against the way he set his offense.

Douglas seems to have plateau'd and while he is a good QB, he is not as good as I initially thought he was! He's not the kind of guy that carries a team on his back.

I always wondered why you were as enthusiastic about him as you were. He was a good find for a 3rd round pick, but unless he gets a VOL hit I never saw his game elevating to elite level. I looked at him like my old QB who tapped out at 50 overall. Being decent in everything wasn't what I wanted from my QB.

[Aston]

Ohhhhhh, that's the first thing I said, garion. "Aw, damn!" I was wondering about that CB's injury. Troglia can sorta play all the coverages, but I figured he would start anyway. Knowing this, I would've shrugged off most fears about going long and gone with the usual 57-1-42 on 1st down. But, the switch was only down to 60-6-34, so it isn't a huge difference. Would've also wished I went 45-10-45 on 2nd & 5-7 instead of 61-5-34.

It'll be very unfortunate if my RBs give another 2ypc effort, though. Unless it's what the defense is giving them, they're bad.

3rd and 5 is something I hope I won't see now. Since it appears we'll be facing neither 3-deep, nor exclusively nickel.

Douglas is a very nice QB, IMO. Not perfect, but for this game, I really like where his SR is at and the fact that he can throw long. 3rd down isn't elite, read defense could be better, and medium could be better, and he could be above 5'11, but that's all OK. I think he has the ability to throw pretty long with a set of good BPR receivers; he just needs a stronger pass-blocking line to keep him from getting constantly hurried when he goes for the 19+ range.

On the other hand, even the best of QBs can't do anything throwing long if their receivers don't have BPR. Perhaps in FOF7, though, the QB's skills and weaknesses will come into play more.

Another thing, hope I don't hand Douglas a lot of 2nd & 5s. :P Sweet breakdown, Foos!

[Guest]

Based on Douglas's initial TC bump, I expected him to settle in around 48-50. Then he had a vol bump, and I expected something like 52-55. However, now it seems like he's settled in at 47 and cut test gives no bonus. Still, he ain't bad!

Nutah's gameplan seems to set him up fairly nicely vs me and I think he has the advantage on me there. I forgot to resign my players to more friendly contracts before my export, so I'll have to live with them, but I think there was only 2-3 guys I'd do that for anyway!

[Aston]

He's only year 4; Boone was a low-50s player fully developed back then, but eventually pushed 70 off of his +10 rookie camp. QBs unmask slowly. (There's that +9 QB I have in the CyFL who is currently 77/77...jelly, garion? c'mon, you jelly. )