Offensive and Defensive Coordinators

[z.arthur23]

I've been thinking about ways to utilize Offensive and Defensive Coordinators in unique and fresh ways for College Football, and there's nothing that comes to mind quite like the idea of "Scouting" and what that really is/consists of.

I very much fall into the type of player who hates knowing everything about other teams. The concept of "fog of war" in relation to having far less information about opponents than I have on my own team because it's far more realistic.
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With that said, some ideas of the information I'd love to receive from my coordinators on a week-to-week basis:

-What the opponent's offensive and defensive playstyle is (air raid, option, west coast, etc./4-3, 3-4, 3-3-5, etc.)
-Percentage of time opponent spends in different offensive and defensive formations.
-Top-3 plays used in different scenarios (1st and 10, 2nd and short, 3rd and long, etc.)
-IMPACT PLAYERS along with some recent achievements to keep an eye on. Hendricks (RB) is on a 4-game 150-yard rushing streak, Johansson (OLB) has 3 sacks in two consecutive games, etc.
-Suggested gameplan and plays to best attack your opponent.
-Offensive/Defensive recruits that will be at the game and/or that the opponent is also recruiting, and the result of the game would have some kind of sway on the recruiting process.
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No matter what, all the information you get DEPENDS on how good/bad the "Scouting" rating of your coordinators is. No matter what, though, it'd be great if there was both room for error and an impossibility to know EVERYTHING.

There's something so exciting about the reality of there always being some kind of mystery that you have to adjust to on a week-to-week basis when playing opponents. Maybe there's a surprise impact player on the opponent's roster who you now have to adjust your gameplan for. Maybe the opponent switches up the defense they throw at you from the one you were given on the gameplan, and you need to think on-the-fly to adjust your offense to attack this surprise.

For me, this would create an incredibly fresh experience that would infinitely vary from week-to-week as long as you play the dynasty. It also adds a real incentive to both hire/develop great coordinators, as well as creates an importance of trying to keep them on your staff instead of losing them to other schools in the hiring process. Maybe former staff members have a greater insight into how you play when you compete against them in the future and those games are noticeably more challenging. I even see a world where you have to put together your own gameplans for your head coach when you're at the beginning of your career as a coordinator yourself.

The ideas are kind of endless! But I'd love to hear what other ideas you all have for coordinators that would help their inclusion feel both important and fresh?

[georgiafan]

I would have a way to have some OC/DC be more recruiters then on coach ability. My video game way of this is to have the skill tree like in madden have 1 or two recruiting trees instead of all coaching.

Even though this in reality may be better served for position coaches. I think the coordinators are close enough since we aren't getting position coaches.

[illwill10]

I agree with having coordinators have recruiting ability. Recruiting will be my Primary focus the first couple years. If it wasn't for the Transfer Portal, I wouldn't play at all the first couple years. The ideal that I can be able to quick start my rebuild by getting guys from the portal that can make team more competitive right away, might make me play games the first couple years. But, my main focus will recruiting. But all that said, once I get things rolling, I would love to delegate recruiting responsibilities to my coordinators. A good way for that to work would be to coordinators to have recruiting skills and recruit based on the coaches position preferences. It would be cool to have your coordinators take the bulk of recruiting and you could just focus on specific recruiting targets.

[illwill10]

I do want to see coordinators to have more of an impact. I would like it to have where we have the coordinators actually calls plays for us. It would be cool to see it in the coach profile if the coordinator calls or HC calls plays. It would require improvements in AI. An easy way to handle it is similar to the Ask Coach feature. So when in games, the Ask Coach section in playbook would be the coordinators play call for the situation. It would need AI improvements for there to be a difference in good playcallers and bad playcallers.

I would like to see coordinator grade have an effect in recruiting. If you have an A graded coordinator that should give you an advantage in recruiting positions of that side.

I do agree that gameplanning be an impact that the coordinators can have. I don't know if I want the Coach Nostradamus feature back because it could be easily exploited, but I wouldn't mind it if it was scaled back.

[z.arthur23]

Quote: Originally Posted by illwill10

I do want to see coordinators to have more of an impact. I would like it to have where we have the coordinators actually calls plays for us. It would be cool to see it in the coach profile if the coordinator calls or HC calls plays. It would require improvements in AI. An easy way to handle it is similar to the Ask Coach feature. So when in games, the Ask Coach section in playbook would be the coordinators play call for the situation. It would need AI improvements for there to be a difference in good playcallers and bad playcallers. I would like to see coordinator grade have an effect in recruiting. If you have an A graded coordinator that should give you an advantage in recruiting positions of that side. I do agree that gameplanning be an impact that the coordinators can have. I don't know if I want the Coach Nostradamus feature back because it could be easily exploited, but I wouldn't mind it if it was scaled back.

Couldn't love the idea of coordinators being the playcallers more. Would even love the option to toggle this as fixed or flexible for those who still want to call their own plays. But if I've got it fixed, and I'm only calling my offense, me having to rely on my defensive coordinator's play calling really raises the stakes and the requirement of having a great coordinator.

Very dependent on the AI of it all though for sure.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by z.arthur23

Couldn't love the idea of coordinators being the playcallers more. Would even love the option to toggle this as fixed or flexible for those who still want to call their own plays. But if I've got it fixed, and I'm only calling my offense, me having to rely on my defensive coordinator's play calling really raises the stakes and the requirement of having a great coordinator. Very dependent on the AI of it all though for sure.

Would also be cool to see coordinators choose jobs on whether they could call plays or not. I definitely want to be able to hire my coordinators. But there should be deciding factors on where a coordinator chooses to go to. The deciding factors could be School Prestige, Playcalling, Conference Prestige, Recruiting ranks, Team Offense/Defense grade. Those would be good deciding factors on what job a coordinators takes. There are a lot of coaching situations where even if a coordinators has there own scheme and has Playcalling responsibilities, they are still required to call the Head Coach's playbook/scheme.

It would be nice to create a custom playbook and assign the playbook to the coordinators. And as you have success and those coordinators get HC job, they take your playbook with them and the cycle continuing with them. It would be cool to see your created playbooks floating around the nation. I would really want to matchup against my former coordinator and have to play against the playbook I created

[jkits]

Love this take and idea altogether. I think the play calling and recruiting responsibilities to be delegated are solid ideas that may need some AI development over time. But the scouting ideas are AWESOME. When I played, in college especially, there was a high emphasis placed on game preparation, scout team scrimmaging, and always paid dividends come game time.

With the landscape of how competitive college football has become, its truly about gaining the edge in the most innovative and significant ways. Having the staff who can fills those roles is just as essential as recruiting the necessary players to execute game plans. I think having weekly practices, working on schemes, and preparing for our opponents is crucial. Having fog of war adds another layer of unpredictability and competitiveness. With all of the scouting elements you mentioned, it could truly make every game unique and something to look forward to week to week.

From hiring staff with good experience and abilities, recruiting players that fit your program's schemes, to preparing weekly and winning the battles on Saturdays...Man, how awesome would it be!

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by jkits

Love this take and idea altogether. I think the play calling and recruiting responsibilities to be delegated are solid ideas that may need some AI development over time. But the scouting ideas are AWESOME. When I played, in college especially, there was a high emphasis placed on game preparation, scout team scrimmaging, and always paid dividends come game time. With the landscape of how competitive college football has become, its truly about gaining the edge in the most innovative and significant ways. Having the staff who can fills those roles is just as essential as recruiting the necessary players to execute game plans. I think having weekly practices, working on schemes, and preparing for our opponents is crucial. Having fog of war adds another layer of unpredictability and competitiveness. With all of the scouting elements you mentioned, it could truly make every game unique and something to look forward to week to week. From hiring staff with good experience and abilities, recruiting players that fit your program's schemes, to preparing weekly and winning the battles on Saturdays...Man, how awesome would it be!

I would love to be able to delegate responsibilities to my coordinators. The hope is that I would want too because they didn't streamline the mode. The current landscape has a ton of responsibilities. Recruiting, NIL, recruiting your own players, transfer portal, game planning. I would love to be able to delegate responsibilities to my coordinators.