Blitziscomin Maze Part II

Back again like we left something. The most dangerous combo is back at it again. One of us is doing most of the work and I am just here riding his coattails. Blitz had more info for that backside. He wants to be clear with all of you and thus the return. He has knowledge overflowing out of him. I am here to make sure it is channeled correctly and act like I did something productive. You want to make sure you read the first Blitziscomin Maze, it works hand in hand with the second part, duh.

I'd like to talk a little more in depth concerning my article posted last week. I recommend reading that article before reading the information below.

Let's start by discussing Position Roles. They can be found at the bottom of the Coaching tab. These position roles can be modified. Here is my Oklahoma Position Roles:

My personal preference for passing plays is to rate each receiver equally that will be running routes. To do this I have changed the Position Roles for RB User 1 and TE User 1 to have the same attributes as Wide Receiver. By doing this I can simply look at the WR rating, RB U1 rating, and TE U1 rating to determine (1) who are my best receivers when setting my depth chart (2) how I want to set my QB progression in my formations.

With the above information I can rank all receivers that will be running pass routes:

WR James Rodriguez 90 WR

WR Rodney Edwards 85 WR

RB John Smith 83 RB1 (same attributes as WR)

WR Troy Martinez 81 WR

TE Ralph Randall 80 TE1 (same attributes as WR)

The next thing I will do is set my formations up for my QB progressions. Every coach has a different philosophy concerning this but I will show two different ways right now. The first way is to set the QB progression for the best receivers first. Using this Trips formation, I would have WR Rodriquez as WR Deep. He is my best receiver so he will be the first progression at each depth. WR Possession will be the second progression and my second-best receiver is WR Rodney Edwards. The third progression will be RB Speed and RB John Smith is my third best receiver. The fourth and fifth receivers won't get a lot of looks so I won't expect them to get a lot of receptions with this formation.

I have also run a lot of pass formations set up like the one below. Set all of the receivers equal and let the QB use his GI/Formation IQ to figure out his own progressions. I ran a formation very similar to this for several seasons where I had all receivers run Medium depth and all had equal Passing % number. I just let the QB choose who to throw it to.

One of the reasons I have moved away from equal weighted passing plays is game planning versus elite coaches. I like to control the QB read progressions to try and take advantage of opponent's defensive weaknesses.

I consider myself a student of the game. I have tried every way I can think of to tweak formations and playbooks to see if I can gain more of an advantage against elite coaches. I feel like this is one of the greatest strengths of GD. Some of us can nerd out and be satisfied that our small tweaks can affect the outcome of the game. Other coaches can have very vanilla game plans and formations and have great success and think that all the "nerdy" stuff is a waste of time.

The most information I gather when I tweak my formations is found reading the Expanded Play-by-Play. I can diagnose my passing game by looking at my QB read progression and adjust as needed. Here is a screenshot of a series from my game against Texas this morning:

I usually try to have a formation or two that I have proven earlier in the season to see and unleash against Texas. They are usually home run type plays where a completion is a TD. I don't like relying on small yardage against some great coaches. I'll sacrifice completion % to see if I can get a few TDs from home runs.

This morning I spent time looking through the Expanded Play-by-Play to see how a few of my tweaked formations did. I mainly look at the QB read progression to make sure the sim is doing what I expect. These five pass plays above confirms to me that my QB read progression is working how I expect. The 2nd &10 on the 36 looks good. My QB is able to get through three read progressions while looking for the home run Deep route for my stud WR Rodriguez first, then look at my second-best receiver Long next, and then finally dump it off Short to my RB. The 3rd & 10 TD looks good also. Once again, the QB looked deep to WR Rodriguez and then found the TE on the second read progression for a TD.

When comparing the two different formations above the QB attributes factor heavily for me. Here are two of my starting QBs currently. My QB at Oklahoma and the sim recruited QB on my Dobie UConn team. I am in my second season of a sim rebuild at UConn so I have different formations/playbooks there than I do at Oklahoma.

My Oklahoma QB has great strength that I have tried to maximize some formation/ game plans to utilize. (I was hoping he would have 80 STR GI and Tech for his Sr* season. He is probably going to fall short in GI and Tech). With his high STR I can change my QB progressions to look at Long/Deep earlier as well as design plays where his accuracy/arm strength can force some throws to covered receivers.

In comparison, my UConn QB has low GPA/formation IQ as well as not favorable STR/GI/Tech. I don't have many long/deep routes for him. I try to design formations/playbooks for him where he doesn't rely on his low GI to have his own QB progressions. I want to tell him exactly where to look to pass the ball because he is a high interception risk. I am quite certain that he would throw more interceptions than TDs and have a completion percentage under 40% if he ran my current Oklahoma formations and playbooks.

Conclusion

My goal in writing this follow-up article is to help coaches improve their passing game by understanding formations and playbooks. So, let me ask you a few questions:

1) What do you want to accomplish with your passing game? Do you want a high completion percentage attack that focuses on Medium/Short passes? Is your offense good enough to do that against elite defenses? Are you willing to sacrifice some completion percentage to mix in some Long/Deep routes for possible chunk yardage?

2) How do you diagnose your passing attack? Do you look at your Expanded Play-by-Play to see if your best receivers are being covered by the opponent's defenders you want to attack at the depth you want? Do you tweak your QB read progressions to improve?

3) If you notice you are losing at the half and your passing attack has the dreaded sub 50% completion percentage --- what do you do? Do you tweak QB read progressions? Do you change passing route depths? Do you look for weaknesses in your opponent's defense to attack?

4) Is your offense set up to maximize your QBs strengths? Is your offense set up to maximize your team's strengths? I know I need to improve getting the most out of my stud WRs when I have them on my roster.

5) Do you know what you need to recruit for to take your offense to the next level? One thing I remember several seasons ago is that I noticed every play in Expanded Play-by-Play mentioned "the defensive line gets the first step" or "the defensive line has broken through" and I was running primarily Medium/Short passing routes. I realized I had a horrible offensive line and that was factoring in to what I was trying to accomplish. I recruited better OL and in the short-term I dropped down to only having 4 receivers running routes while I had a FB/TE stay and help pass blocking.

Hopefully I have given you a few things to think about and maybe even the desire to look further into your Position Roles, Formations, and Game Plan pages!

I think it is safe to say everyone is now a better coach because of this series. I wonder who has been doing this all along. I have tried some of these things and will need to look at my plans again and maybe change things. You can not argue with what has been said by blitziscomin, he has won a lot of games thus far. He has beat some good programs and is in the hunt for the NC. I will keep this short so that you have time to read this and get to your team setup. Until the next time, take it easy.