Stud Maze

We usually cover coaches and teams. How about showing some love to the boys who actually go out there and have to perform. They perform day in and day out, rain or sunshine, they just get it done. They spill sweat, blood and tears out there for their programs, then the coaches get all the love. Remember these young men are not even getting paid for their work but the coaches are making bank for themselves. I am just going to leave that there to strike a nerve with some of you.

We are going to start off by looking at the QBs. They are the key to a winning program. You want to make sure you have a good one behind that line and running things for you. You want your QB to be like a general just commanding his fellas. In week 11 the best QB at throwing the ball is Thomas Know. The young man hails out of Manassas, VA, he is a senior and has been improving every year. Kuddos to the coach for putting the young man in a system for him to excel. I know I brought the coaches back. When you look at his attributes you would not expect him to be this studly, but his formation IQ is up there, 91. His game instinct is only 75 with an 87 for technique. He has enough strength and good hands to take care of the ball and chuck it down the field. The young man has been on the field for 79% of the offensive plays for his team. He has only played 1 Sim AI team and has been able to put up such ridiculous numbers. He has 45/1 for the TD/Int ratio. So he is getting the job done right, with a 61% completion rate. Can you say stud.

So we know who is chucking the ball in the air the best at this point in time. How about who is pounding the rock? We have young Mr. Richard Cook out of Ball State. The young man already has 2163 yards on the season with an average of 4.7 yards. He has run the ball into the endzone 20 times. This guy is legit. He is also used in the pass game with 11 receptions with a total of 223 yards with an average of 20.3 yards and 1 TD. He mainly shows up in the run game clearly which is his job. Dick is a redshirt sophomore, so you know he is going to be around for a while and he is going to be producing, hopefully. I think it is safe to say this is his breakout season because he did not do much last year, he had less than 1000 yards. I think if he continues to grow and develop he will have a 3000 yard season next year if the coach keeps the same game plan. Dick is quick (89), strong (87), has good hands (91) and will juke like his life depends on it (80). He has an okay brain and a good work ethic to make up for it and that combo for me means he will continue to develop so lookout world. I know you are thinking who has he played, well more than 50% of his games have been against human coaches. Only one of those coaches has a losing record at this point in time and that says to me Dick is for real.

Now this part of the game is tricky. Do you only look at the yards, or do you look at the receptions or should it be the TDs? I made an executive decision and looked at the yards only for now. And the guy who is putting up yards in the air is Larry Foster at Miami(OH). Now Larry won't jump out at you as a stud but his coach has found a way to get him in position to succeed. His QB loves him more than any other of his receivers. On the yards list for the entire division he is only a few yards ahead of Fred Lane at Houston. Now Fred is a STUD and his coach loves him a lot. He has been yapping about him for a while. But we are talking about Larry so chill Fred. Larry is a senior and will be leaving a big hole in that receiver group and he is not even a WR, he is an RB. Coaches being clever with their players out here. Larry hasn't run the ball that much this year in comparison to previous years. He has flipped his role on the team from a proper runner to a receiver. I am sure the coach will not have a tough job replacing him, they are in Ohio and studs are plenty plus out there.

It is fun to be able to put up offensive numbers, but there is a group of guys who are trying to stop that. Jimmy Grant has been tackling guys for fun. 106 tackles, and he is the only one in triple digits for tackles. The young man is playing at Georgia and is from Georgia. I bet this kid is god in Georgia. Home state kid representing the big school well. The team is not doing too bad either which always helps. Jimmy is a studly player which should not surprise anyone given his tackles numbers. Jimmy has put up his numbers against 5 human coaches and 6 Sim AI teams. That is a good split of teams that he has faced and put up his numbers. Jimmy has been putting up numbers every year and has just been improving. I think this will be his best year and I am sure his under fire coach will be happy with that. I am sure he wants to give his coach a great parting gift by stopping the offenses he faces.

Getting to the QB is key for defense. It allows you to stay in the game. The player who has been getting to the QB the most thus far is William Burt, who has got to the QB 17 times thus far. Bill is a Cali guy who must be loving life in Utah. He is a senior and I am sure he is ready to get out of the state. I think he has developed well over the last 4 years he has been at the school. He faced a lot of human coaches early on in the season but has just been facing some Sim AI teams lately but that will change tonight in the game that will determine who goes to the conference title game. I am sure he will do everything he can to go out with another title to his name. Bill has a few other guys on his heels who are also getting to the QB a ton. I am sure he will want to finish his college career with the most sacks in the division.

If the guys upfront are unable to get to the QB it I then up to the guys in the back to take care of things. This includes limiting the yards gained, deflecting passes or better yet pick off the passes. We have 3 players who have 8 interceptions each this year. That is 8 in 11 games, very close to a pick a game. We have Eric Marks playing at Ohio State who are doing well. Eric is a senior who has definitely raise his game in the pick department. He had a total of 4 picks in his previous 3 years and now has doubled that in a single year with a few more games to go. Way to go Eric. The second player we have is another Eric, Eric Marin dong his thing at Boston College. He has only had 2 picks prior to this season and has gone up 4 times this season. I think the coach had a sit down with him. The third player of this trio is Mr. Arthur Powell playing out of Houston. Arthur like Mr. Marin has a similar situation, only 2 picks in the previous years and now up to 8 this year. I know coach ebel talks to his players and I am sure he talked to Arthur and asked him to step his game up.

Now I know the criteria I used to look at who I thought were studs might be different from your and you know what that's okay. We all have different vantages and those allow us to have a fuller picture of things as long we share that info. There is still plenty of time for this stud list to change but until then take it easy people.