Re: The Coaching Career of Brian Rock (NCAA 2014 a video dynasty)
DYNASTY GOALS:
I am starting this dynasty with Brian Rock offensive coordinator of Kent State. I filter one star teams and closed my eyes counted to 20 and I landed on the Golden Flashes and here we are. After running my last dynasty (here) for almost 20 seasons I think I have the bugs worked out of the house rules and I am now ready to start my coaching career. The last dynasty I started to formulate the house rules with the help of others on the board and then did many seasons of testing to make sure the results were what I was looking for. Now that I think they are pretty solid I am going to start a new dynasty where my teams have not gone in and messed up the history and balance of the league.
The goal of this dynasty and the restrictions I impose on myself are to try and provide a more realistic outcome to program building. I enjoy the year to year play more than I do the minute to minute on field action. I like taking a down and out program and returning them to glory. If you have ever played NCAA 2014 you know, without house rules, the game if fairly easy to dominate and once you get a successful team it is easy to win championship and championship. I hope the rules below will keep that from happening. I will continue to tweak the rules so know they will always be changing. I must use the the playoff of my offensive coordinator when simming.
RECRUITING RULES: LIMITS Three Visits
I can only schedule three visit all year long. This will be a very tough decision on which recruits will be the ones who gets to visit my campus. This makes late season recruiting get very interesting when battling with a couple schools for a kid as they might jump +700 points in a single week and I do not have a good way to make up the difference. No Scouting
I can not scout any of the prospects that are on my board. Recruiting is to easy for me because I can easily find the best of what I can get to sign with my program without any issue and get those guys on campus. To combat this I will not scout any prospects. Once a kid commits to my program I can then scout him to see what I've got, those Gems and Busts titles are now going to carry a lot more meaning and impact since I will be stuck with these kids. This does add a "kid at Christmas morning" feel to when I get the message that a kid has signed with my program because then I get to go and find out what I really just signed. No Kitchen Sink
No upgrading the kitchen sink skill. I have a max of 500 points per week than I can spend on a recruit. Once you get above that 500 level you can really just cherry pick who you want, this keeps that from becoming such an issue. Class Size Limits
I have decided to change to a tiered system determine how many recruits I can sign.
1* can sign 12 players
2* can sign 11 players
3* and 4* can sign 10 players
5* and 6* can sign 9
Once I have signed my limit of players each season I turn my teams recruiting over to the computer and let it go after players. This makes the game harder by only recruiting the limits listed above myself and then the rest of the class will comprise of the players the computer picks up for my team. It is very rare to see teams ranked in the top 5 year in and year out in real life but easy to accomplish in this game. I am hoping this will make it much harder to sustain major success. Also this is not just how many I can sign, but how many I can have on my board at and given time.
In this dynasty (in 2022) my class average has been 36th over the last 5 years. Even with knocking back my players AWR to 73 every year I have the sixth most talented team in my dynasty at 95ovr. With out restrictions we could easily be the top team in probably just 3 seasons and be so loaded it would be easy to maintain. Right now we we are talented but with the restrictions we are going to drop next seasons as it is much harder to build depth like I could without restrictions.
REGIONAL RESTRICTIONS Pipelines
I have noticed the recruiting setup for NCAA 2014 gives you the ability to recruit Nationally very easy. In real life your pipelines and home state are very important to recruiting and few programs easily recruit nationally. To bring this game back better in line with real life I am implementing the following. I only get to have two pipeline states a year were I can recruit any player from pipeline states. The player can't be higher than my team prestige unless we start out as their top school.
Note: Coastal/Border school defined as any school within 170 miles of the border or coast line.
Local (1*)
Can only recruit from our home state.
Close to Home (2*)
I can only recruit my home state, pipelines and states that are within a
65 miles of my campus. 110 miles if coastal\US border school.
Regional (3*)
I can only recruit my home state, pipelines and states that are within a
135 miles of my campus. 220 miles if coastal\US border school.
Regional (4*)
I can only recruit my home state, pipelines and states that are within a
265 miles of my campus. 440 miles if coastal\US border school.
National (5*)
I can only recruit my home state, pipelines and states that are within a
530 miles of my campus. 880 miles if coastal\US border school.
National (6*)
I can only recruit my home state, pipelines and states that are within a
630 miles of my campus. 1050 miles if coastal\US border school.
INTEREST RESTRICTIONS In State
I can recruit any players in my schools home state. Pipeline States
I can recruit any player from pipeline states. The player can't be higher than my team prestige unless we start out as their top school. Regional & National States
I can only recruit players who I start off in their top 10. The player can't be higher than my team prestige unless we start out as their top school. I must be in the recruits starting Top 10 to be able to recruit them. I look at this as these are players that my coaching staff has been recruiting since their sophomore and junior year in high school. We have already identified these kids as who we want in our program and now we are just narrowing down who we are going to bring on campus. Three Outsiders
I can only recruit players who I start off in their top 10. The player can't be higher than my team prestige unless we start out as their top school. This will allow me to try and build new pipelines but with it only being three players a year it will take multiple years to establish those pipelines.
IN GAME & SLIDERS:
These sliders are not designed to provide the most realistic stats known to man, they are to provide me with a tough game. I only play a couple games a year and I would rather have them be hard to win. Personally they provide me with what I'm looking for but might be a little extreme compared to many of the slider sets posted on the site. The computer will blow up multiple runs in the back field every game, I have passes dropped like crazy when contact is made, blocks missed, my defense misses tackles, my d-backs will get trucked etc. When I am coaching a great team these provide a good challenge, when I am playing with a bad team I want to throw the controller through the tv sometimes, but I know as I build the program up they start playing easier and easier. When I play a team ranked in the Top 15 I will add 5 points to each CPU slider.
Penalty Sliders
DPI to 0 - This will cause tighter coverage and more battles for the ball but human Int needs to be lowered as you will get a lot more due to the much more aggressive DB play.
In Game Adjustments
Big Run = Aggressive, with Rush Defense at 100 this causes more fumbles.
Holding Blocks = Conservative, increase difficulty of run game.
Catching = Aggressive, more dropped passes.
OTHER RESTRICTIONS: Players Leaving Early
I can only try and convince one player a year to not leave early or transfer to another school.
Yearly AWR Adjustments
Another problem with this game is that human player progression is far quicker than the computer. It is not uncommon to see a human player progress +15 AWR points in the course of a season. This makes the game very easy if you do a sim/play setup like I do. To fix this I reset all returning players, who's AWR is greater than 73, back to 73 during the preseason.
Coaching Contracts
I must complete a minimum of 50% of the length of any Head Coaching contract I sign.
SOS
Strength of Schedule must be an A difficulty. This makes things much harder than picking up four wins against cup cakes every year in non conference play. If playing as a non power 5 (outside the AAC top tier) I will schedule two games where I am seen as a rent a win for the computer and two manageable game as it is impossible to get A level schedule difficulty playing in a non power 5 conference.
Coaching Progression Speed
This needs to be set to the slowest speed. You must do this when you set up the dynasty, you will not be able to change this once you have started the dynasty!
Offensive Playbook
When simming games I must use the playbook of my offensive coordinator but I can adjust the run/pass percentages.
Quick Sheet
GAMES: Regular Season
I can only play three regular season games each year, I use a program to randomly pick the games for me to play. I will have no control over the selection of which games I will be playing. Post Season
I can play in the conference championship game, bowl game or playoffs if my team qualifies for any of these.
POST SEASON SETUP:
Spoiler
In years when the bowls are not part of the playoff bracket, the highest-ranked non-playoff teams from the following conferences or groups are selected. Non-Conference Champion selections must have at least 9 wins to qualify for the 6 Major Bowls. If a conference does not have a team with at least 9 wins to fill their slot it will become an at large selection.[53]
No limit to the number of teams from one conference, in 2014 the SEC had 1 team in the playoffs and 2 teams in the Major Bowls.
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Rotation Groups
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Rose Bowl — Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1
Sugar Bowl — SEC #1 vs. Big 12 #1
Orange Bowl — ACC #1 vs. SEC #2, Big Ten #2, or Notre Dame
Cotton Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five" (committee selection)
Fiesta Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five" (committee selection)
Peach Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five" (committee selection)
In non-playoff years, if the Orange Bowl matchup creates a regular-season rematch for the ACC representative, the bowl may choose to "skip over" the prescribed opponent from the SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame group and select the next highest-ranked team from the group. The team that was rejected would be placed in one of the three at-large bowls, if it meets ranking standards.[55]
In years where a Big Ten team is assigned to play in a non-semifinal Orange Bowl, the Citrus Bowl will host the top non-CFP selection from the ACC against the top non-CFP selection from the SEC.
Notre Dame - Tie-in to Orange Bowl vs. ACC if ranked by CFP committee higher than all non-champions from SEC and Big Ten. The Irish are eligible for ACC contracted bowls below the Orange Bowl (Russel Athletic, Gator, Belk, Sun, Military, Indep, Quick Lane and Citrus on years that the Big 10 #2 is selected to go to the Orange Bowl). However, Notre Dame cannot be selected by an ACC bowl if there is an eligible ACC team with two or more wins than Notre Dame. For example, a 9-3 Duke team must be chosen over a 7-5 Notre Dame team, But if Duke was 8-4 the bowl could take the 7-5 Notre Dame team.
In years when the Orange Bowl is a national semifinal, the ACC champion plays in the Fiesta or Peach bowls if it is not selected for the playoff.[56]
If the Big Ten or SEC champion is available for a non-playoff bowl in a year when the Rose and Sugar Bowls are hosting semifinals, that team appears in either the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or Peach Bowl, but not the Orange Bowl.[53]
The highest-ranked champion from the "Group of Five" conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt) is guaranteed a berth if the group's top team is not in the playoff and is ranked in the Top 15. We use a promotion/relegation setup with the AAC being the highest level. To qualify for the playoff a team must be in the AAC, but the "Group of Five" at large birth goes to the highest ranked team from any of the five conferences. [53]
The remaining five at-large bids are determined by committee rankings.[53]