Guides

[AKH]

Recruiting

Recruiting season
The first sim of recruiting is the week1 regular season sim. You can set up your recruiting before that (e.g. at the training camp or redshirt stage) but nothing will be processed before the week 1 sim. Recruiting then runs every sim until, and including the bowl sim. Then there is a short break for championship and end of season stuff, before you get one last shot at the start of the new season. This means that you can recruit for the signing day sim as well.

I didnt get enough players
If you fail to get all your scholarships signed during the recruiting season, your coaches will travel the country on signing day and help you get your roster filled. (The players signed in this way still get a scholarship, and are therefore as such not walk-ons.)

Recruiting Points
These points you assign to recruits. They represent resources allocated to convince them to sign with your program.The more recruiting points you assign, the more aggressively your recruiters will pursue a player.
You should make sure to have spent all your points for every sim, so as to not waste resources. The game will carry over assigned points, so you do not get new points after each sim, but are free to re-allocate points to other recruits. If a player signs with another team, you will get the points you allocated to him back, and can distribute them on other targets. However, if a player signs with you, the points allocated to him are locked, and you will not get them back.

Scholarships
Each recruitingseason you will have an amount of free scholarships to offer to recruits. The amount depends on your rostersize and how many players will graduate after the season. Offering a player a scholarship makes him more likely to sign with you (clearly, if you havent offered him a 'ship he cant sign with you, the point here is that offering scholarships works with recruiting points to increase his chance to sign with). This means that before a sim, you should make sure to have offered out all your scholarships, so as to not waste recruiting resources. You can always remove an 'ship offer and offer the 'ship to someone else.

Who to target
The game provides a filter with recommended targets that is easy to use. This suggestion leans to the conservative side, so a player not being listed here does not entail that you couldn't get him. Observe that the recommended targets does not reflect who you have the biggest chance to get, and therefore they are not surefire options. Whaqt the list reflects are those you have a realistic chance to get. For those with the best chance you should go way down in recruiting rank and set the distance to the lowest options.
If you are a low prestige team, it is very preferable to look for players with no offers. In doing this you can go outside your suggested range, and may come out with better classes than you would have gotten if you' stayed 'safe'. Dont give up on a player just because he has low interest IF NO ONE ELSE IS TARGETING HIM. He will prefer going to your program, if the alternative is not playing football at all.

Going outside the recommended targets
Fir thing to notice when doing this is the highest ranked player (in terms of recruitrank) in your recommended targets. This is based mainly on prestige - use this as a rough benchmark when looking at other players. The further away (better recruitrank) you get from this target the less likely you are to be interesting to the player. Additionally, when moving outside the recommended targets you want to quickly determine your chances by interviewing the player [see more below].

What determines if a player likes me?
There are a range of factors that interact to determine a players preferences. Some of the major ones can be discerned in his personality, this is why getting interviews on players you are uncertain about is a good idea. The factors that can be assessed from his personality are the following:

Values prestige:
should be obvious

Values Playing time:
not only how many you have at his position BUT also their quality. so if you have a 95 rated RS freshmen at the same position, that counts highly against you, because the player will expect to sit behind him for 3 or 4 years. Look at your roster breakdown and the quality of the players that will be there next year.

Values market size:
aligns roughly with conference prestige. Observe that conference prestige is dynamic. This means that if you run a 30 year sim and the SEC takes a nosedive, where all the teams lose prestige for several years, and no-one brings home a championship for years, the conference will lose prestige, and may not have the swagger in the ears of year 2040 recruits, that it does in the ears of 2016 recruits. Similarly, bottom conferences may blossom over the years (maybe led by you?). So especially in longterm sims, pay attention to how the conferences are doing to assess this. You can see the conference prestige on the standings page.

Values Winning:
should be obvious, but keep in mind they are also looking at recent history, not just that you might be having a good year right now.

Values Close to home:
should be fairly obvious. Observe that since we are using real distances (lat/lon) players from highschools close to state borders might actually be closer to an out-of-state program than to a big college at the other end of the state.

Values Loyaty and Security:
These both factor in, albeit in a minor way, relating to how long you are on a recruit. The longer you recruit a player for, the bigger the impact. Security indicates the player getting used to the thought of moving his life to your program, making plans, imagining himself living away from home and time to make practical preparations. Loyaty represents how much he values persistent recruiting.

Now because a player has a rating in each of these they have different impact, so you might be able to convince a player that is far away, if his 'values close to home' is very low etc.

Important:
Every value matters. This means that you cannot only look at the values he rates highly. A common misconception is only looking at the values above 50 thinking he will base his decision solely on them, and ignoring the others. This is a mistake. Perhaps your team is winning on the one rating he values the most, but if you lose on all the others it might even out.

Competition
Obviously, a major factor in your chances to get a player, is the other teams pursuing that player. After the first recruiting sim (regular season week 1) you can see a list of the teams recruiting a player on his player card (click the 'scout report' button on his entry on your targetlist to open). Keep an eye on your competitors to help you asses whether to cut bait on a player. If you are a small school and you see 'bama waltz in with a handful of trinkets and a scholarship? The perhaps its time to show yourself the door, even if his 'values prestige' is low.

Important:
Because recruiting is not a winner takes all affair, this means that every team on a player has a chance to get him. Obviously the chance of his preferred team is much better than the rest. However, the upshot of this is that the more teams are on a player the lower everyone's chance to get him gets. So if you are his preferred team and you had a 90% chance to get him if you were up against only one other team, this might fall to like 50% or 60% (im just making numbers up here) if there are 6 teams. So rather than getting him 9 out 10 times, you would only get him half the time. So again: pick your battles.

Current rank
In addition to previous winning seasons, your current ranking matters.

Interest
The interest bar indicates two things. First of all it obviously indicates how much he likes your program. Over time he may warm up to you, or cool down (e.g. if someone enters he likes more). The other thing interest indicates is how much he values your recruitingpoints. So high interest is a good sign if you are facing competition.

How many points should I assign?
First off: there are a lot of teams in the college world, and you are likely to have a few competitors for every recruit. The AI goes hard after its targets assigning as many points it can afford, and is then subsequently very sensitive to the prospect of losing, and will shift targets if it thinks it is trailing too much on a recruit. This means that for the players you absolutely want, you need to target hard as well. If the competition isn't stiff, or you can see that a player fits your program perfectly in terms of matches between your program and his preferences, you can get away with assigning less. One thing to keep in mind is that if you have been the only team on a player for a long time, and have stacked up at lot of goodwill (points) on the player, at some point you can start to pull off a few points and allocate them to other targets. Of course you will need to monitor weekly whether someone else jumps in on him and possibly increase points again in that case. When exactly it is safe to take the foot off the pedal is uncertain, but it is definitly riskier for smaller teams than for bigger teams.

Persistence:
However, players also value persistence. This means that if you keep yourself on a players radar, even if you dont currently have a scholarship to offer him, it will benefit you if you later want to target him. Therefore, (if you can spare the points) it is useful to allocate a few points to fallback targets, that you can then turn to if one of your main targets sign elsewhere.

Important:
Because your chance to sign a player depends on the relative amount of recruiting points (modified by how much he values the points of the team in question) between competing teams, it is critical to your chances to keep stacking points on players where there is competition. This also means that the first few weeks of recruiting are critical in terms of picking your battles, especially for the top recruits because it is very hard to comeback from behind against equal competition. Additionally; This also means that when you are looking for fallback targets you either need to find players that are targeted by teams worse than you. Bigger teams can catch up to suckier teams even if they come in late (or preferably players that have no offers). NOTICE IF YOU CLICK THE NAME ON A PLAYER IN THE PLAYERPOOL YOU CAN SEE HIS PLAYERCARD AND WHO'S TARGETING HIM BEFORE YOU ADD HIM TO YOUR TARGETS. You can go way outside your recommended distance (and in principle prestige range) if you find players without offers - of course if a local big fish jumps on them you might still lose them. It is often preferable to back off a highly contested 4star ranked 250 and instead target a 3star ranked 350. Dont get too caught up in starratings.

The 'recruited by' list
On the player card this provides a list of five of the teams recruiting him in no particular order. To be listed a team much have offered him a scholarship AND he must have more than 50 interest. Importantly, this does not indicate who is in the lead, and the team in the lead MAY NOT be listed. I will however usually reflect the biggest teams targeting a player. If no-one has offered a scholarhip to the player it will say NONE, if someone has offered a scholarship to a player but is below 50 interest it the field will be blank. This also means that (mostly in multiplayer leagues) the further you get into the season, the more weary you should be when its blank, because some minor team may have stacked a lot of points nevertheless.


Cutting players
If you cut players from your roster, you will get extra scholarships and a few extra recruiting points. However, since the 'budget' has already been made for that season, you the athletic department isn't keen to shell out a lot of resources just because you decided you hated half the roster, so the amount of extra recruitingpoints you get for cutting a player is less than what was 'budgetted with' in the initial budget. This means that if you cut a lot of players, you can get into a bad situation where you wont have the resources to agressively pursue players for every free scholarship you have, so be careful.

[AKH]

Scouting

Scouting Points
These are points you allocate in order to gauge the ratings and personality of a prospect. You have a fixed amount of scouting points each week, representing the resources you have available to travel the country and look at prospects. After each sim you get all the scouting points back, and can allocate them again.

Scouting Ratings
The total amount of points you can spend scouting a player is 20. The amount of points you allocate stack meaning that you dont have to spend 20 at once, but can pour in a little each sim. The more points spend on a player, the more accurate the assessment of his ratings will be. This means that the assessment of his ratings in a case where you have only assigned one point will be significantly less reliable than a case where you have spent 15. When you reach a total of 20 points spent, you will have the most accurate report you can get. You can track the reliability on the 'report accuracy' bar on the player card.

Understanding the ratings assesments
When you look at a player you havent scouted yet, all his ratings will be listed as unscouted. When scouting a player, your scout will come back with an assessment of each of his relevant ratings, this means your scout wont be bothered with assessing the tackling of a QB and so on. The most important part to understand about the assesments is that they are based on the average of that particular rating across all active players of the same position. This means that if you are scouting a TE and getting an assesment of his Hands skill, the scout will base his assesment on the avereage of the Hands of all TE's currently in the league. If the average of all TE's Hands are 63, and the player you are scouting has 63 hands the scout will tell you his hands are average (if he is 100% accurate). Now, because there is a lot of really bad players on really bad teams this means that those averages may be lower than you expect. If you are a top tier team, then 'average' Hands might not cut it for you if you want a pass catching TE.

Margin of error in the assesments
There are 22 (not counting 'unscouted') different assessments ordered by their relation to the benchmark. Observe that the margin of error in your scoutreport will show up in how far removed the given assessment is from the correct assessment in the ordering. This means that as you increase your report certainty the error margin will decrease, and you may be satisfied with less than full certainty when you feel the given assessment likely indicates the approximate level (i.e. the error margin is reduced and you like the indication it is giving).

List of ratings
Remember, these are dynamic and the benchmark will change depending on the playerpool, so not only will it differ between positions, it will also differ from season to season as the playerpool changes. Additionally, because of the number of different ratings, only a few points seperate each.

Unscouted,
Pathetic,
Awful,
Terrible,
Bad,
Subpar,
Deficient,
Underdeveloped,
Unexeptional,
Pedestrian,
Acceptable,
Average,
Decent,
Fine,
Good,
Great,
Remarkable,
Exceptional,
Fantastic,
Amazing,
Unique,
Mindblowing,
Incredible

Interviews
Interviews are crucial because they unlock two things. First and foremost, they allow you to see a players personality, which is important in order to get an idea of what he likes, and assess your chances of signing. Secondly, interviewing a player reveals whether he has any special traits (listed under 'special' on his player card). Traits give various bonuses either on or off the field, and thus make the player more valuable. You can only interview a player once, but on the positive side, there is no error margin on the information you get. Scheduling an interview costs 5 scouting points.

[AKH]

Training

Training Camp
Spring camp is the place where your players have the opportunity to prepare for the season. The training camp thus has its own sim/stage at the beginning of the season, after signing day. Improvementwise, training camp is the sim, where your players have the best opportunity to improve.

Regular Season Training
During the regular season your players will train weekly, but due to the amount of other stuff occupying young people's minds during a school year, gains will be lower here.

Training Schedules
Training schedules are where you can create different training regimens, customized to particular positions or players. You can create as many training schedules as you want, allowing for a great deal of micromanaging if you so please.

When you take over a new team, all your players will be assigned to a default schedule. If you cannot be bothered to micromanage training, you can either change the settings on the default schedule and leave the players there, or just ignore it, and the players will use it as is. The default schedule (starting from patch 2) will be an alround schedule, that makes sure players get a decent amount of training across the board, and prevents the most prevalent negative side effects, such as regress and fatigue/whine.

After you have created a schedule, and set its settings (remember to click 'save') you can assign as many players as you want to it.

Observe that a player cannot *not* be on a schedule, so if you delete a schedule that still has players assigned, those players will be moved to a default schedule.

If a player is injured he wont train - you dont need to take him of a schedule or create a lighter schedule - the game will just let him sit out that particular training session.

Schedule Settings
A training shedule has four settings you can set.

Position Drills
This aspect focuses on the skills necessary for the players position. So even while QBs and LBs do not have use for the same skills, you can put them on the same schedule, and the game will make sure they train the relevant skills for their position.

Athletic Training
This aspect focuses on developing the athleticism of players, mainly the speed and agility ratings.

Physical Training
This aspect focuses on developing the physicial shape of the players, mainly the Strength and Stamina ratings.

Game Tape
Having players watch game tape and do mental reps on plays helps them prepare for upcoming games and develop their intelligence.

How many points should I assign?
The combined total of the 4 aspects you can assign to a schedule is 25 points. However, if you assign too little to a given aspect, your players may regress. If you get close to 25 in total, you run the risk of injuries, and depending on their personalities players may start to complain and lose morale (the effects of which may propagate and yield further negative effects). As you will see on the default schedule, the AI is running with a total of 22 points, which will largely avoid negative effects.

Training Emails
After training camp, and each week during the regular season, your coaches will get back to you (in your email) with a summary of the most notable player performances in training organized by training aspect. At the top of the email you may occasionally see a few players highlighted that have either boomed or busted recently.

What determines if a player progresses
Obviously the training schedule matters. In addition to this, there are a lot of factors, but two things are worth highlighting. The first is that personality matters a lot, and certain of the off-field player traits (listed under 'special' on the player card) can have a big impact. The second is that the players current ability in a given rating impacts how easy it is to progress. If the player is at a level where simply teaching him the basics will yield a big improvement in his performance (i.e. a newbie LB learning to tackle properly will be able to progress from 50 to 55 in tackling with relative ease). Conversely players who are already close to perfecting a given aspect of their game will have a difficult time improving more. This is especially true for the more bodily ratings (i.e. an olympic sprinter might need to train for months to shave just a couple of hundred ms of his 40time, similarly getting a WR to increase from 96 to 97 in speed is super difficult).

[brooks_piggott]

Gameplanning/League Options

On the gameplanning screen, setting your run/pass ratio to 100 doesn't guarantee you will throw 100% of the time. It just means max Pass which in the NCAA is normally around a 70/30 split (see Texas Tech). And getting to a max depends on how the games flows... if you're winning by a lot even with pass on 100 the game still runs the ball more. If you're backed up on the 1 yard line the game runs more. If you're on the 1 yard line the game runs more. If you're behind, in a 2 minute drill, or at an unfavorable down and distance, the game passes more.

League Options Playcalling Modifier

You can use this modifier to either change the overall playcalling blend of the league, or open it up to more extreme values. Increasing the base increases the pass ratio. Increasing the modifier gives more weight to the playcalling screen. The 1/100 playcalling basically turns all control over to the playcalling screen and basically remove the limits for how far you can go. At 10/58 you get a pretty realistic balance for many teams... and extreme teams get to 70/30 splits. If you change the modifier in options to 1/100 then you can get even more extreme splits, like 90/10 or 95/5.

If you were to experiment with other combinations you could turn the league into old time football where the pass is almost never used, or create pass-only leagues that never run.

Custom Playbooks

Regardless of the pass/run ratio, the game will follow whichever playbook (stock or custom) you have assigned to that scenario. So if you have it set to 1/100 and you max out 100 on every game planning scenario, and assign a custom playbook to that scenario with 3 pass plays, you will probably throw the ball 60-70 times, and call each of those plays 20-25 times. There will be a few runs even at 100 across the board because the AI situation calls for it, but not many at all.

[AKH]

Player Traits

Player traits are indicative of the specialty of the player. There is a wide range of traits in the game, some more rare than others.

Player traits all give bonuses in one or more areas/situations. The area/situation and bonus depends on the trait in question. The titles of the traits give a rough indication. Additionally, wrt recruiting traits MAY also indicate the skillset of the player, so it is worth looking out for those.

By interviewing recruits you reveal if they have any specialty.

List of traits/specialtis:

Dualthreat
Gunslinger
Game Manager
Clutch QB
Power Runner
Scatback
All Purpose RB
Blocking FB
Receiving FB
Possesion WR
Deep Threat
Slot Receiver
Receiving TE
Blocking TE
Bookend Tackle
Tenacious Blocker
Athletic Blocker
Nose Tackle
Bull Rusher
Speed Rusher
Coverage LB
Thumper
Hybrid Passrusher
Shut Down Corner
Press Corner
Zone Corner
Slot Corner
Box Safety
Centerfielder
Clutch Kicker
Power Leg
Lockerroom Leader
Natural Talent
Workout Fanatic
Film Geek
Fierce Competitor
Consummate Pro
High Aptitude
Hidden Gem
Developing Star
Pro Bloodline
Diva
Distraction
Fan Favorite
RoleModel
Bad Influence,
Off Field Issues
InjuryProne
Team Player,
Athlete
Community Benefactor
Media Darling,
Perceptive
Under Investigation

[AKH]

Ratings
Here is an updated version of the explanations in the pdf help.

Strength - Key attribute for making tackles, breaking tackles, holding blocks and breaking through blocks. Influences chance to force/avoid fumbles.

Agility - Key attribute for dodges/cutting when running with the ball. Affects tackling. Influences catches/interceptions. Affects ability to adjust in blocking.

Arm - QB key Attribute for getting a ball to a receiver. Higher Arm means more completions. Factors more on long throws.

Intelligence - Key attribute for awareness on the field. Helps QBs assess and react to blitzes, pull down throws, throw ball away to avoid sacks, avoid interceptions. Helps ballcarriers find holes, react to defenders movements. Key attribute for defenders to assess run vs pass and adjust behavior accordingly, especially getting out of coverage in reaction to runplays. Helps tackling by anticipating ballcarrier movement. Helps interceptions. Affects ability to adjust in blocking.

Accuracy - QB accuracy with his throws. Increases completion pct and lowers interception rate. Factors more on short throws.

Tackling - Defensive attribute for bringing down a ball carrier.

Speed - Key attribute for ALL players.

Hands - Key attribute for making catches and interceptions. Affects handplacement in blocking. Helps avoid fumbles.

Pass Blocking - Attribute to make successful pass blocks.

Run Blocking - Attribute to make successful run blocks.

Endurance - Key attribute for all players. Higher endurance players can stay on the field longer. Factors in on injuries and ability to avoid performance drop late in games.

Kick Distance - For kickers this affects FG pct at longer distances. For Punters this affects punt distance.

Kick Accuracy - For kickers this affects FG pct. For Punters this affects killing the ball inside the 20.

Overall – Overall rating. In DDSCF the game defaults to absolute overall.

Leadership – Allows player to improve the team’s morale. Motivates players to play better. Quells lockerrom mumbling. Lets players lead by example, for instance by standing tall in the pocket and take a hit, or fighting for that extra yard.

Work Ethic – Affects training

Competitiveness – How hard the player plays during the game. Affects morale when winning or losing. Affects performance in crunch time. Contested catches (both defense and offense). Affects training.

Team Player – Plays to win and less for accolades. Affects how well players gel as a team, thereby improving performance.

Sportsmanship – Players attitude towards the other team. Affects penalties.

Disposition – Temperament of the player, good locker room influencer, also affects penalties. Minor affect on development of young players.

Morale – Affects player temperament and performance. Winning games, winning awards all improve morale. Losing, not starting or getting injured and such can detract from morale. If morale gets low enough the player is more likely to affect the locker room negatively.

[AKH]

Note on missed tackles and dropped passes
A common misconception is that when looking at a players stats, and seeing that he doesnt drop many passes or miss many tacklers, is the conclusion that his tackling or hands (and related ratings) are good enough, and no significant increase in performance would be related to better ratings. As stated; this is a misconception. Players with better ratings in tackling and hands will be able to haul in passes / make tackles, that would not be classifed as dropped/missed if they werent succesful. There are plenty extra catches/tackles the player could have made, than those that become listed as dropped/missed.

[AKH]

Team Staff- Coaches

Starting coaches
When you start a new game, you will inherit the coaches currently on your team. However, for non CPU teams, these coaches will be under contract for only the first season. This means that you can either extend them or replace them after the season.

Hiring/Firing Coaches
You Hire and Fire coaches during the staff signing phase at the beginning of each season. There are two weeks (sims) in this phase.

Public Options / Signing coaches from other teams
As with NFL you can attempt to hire away coordinators from other teams, but (because of the IRL rule that allows teams to block lateral moves, which we assume they will do, as they do in real life) ONLY to be your headcoach.

This means that for ONLY the first coach signing sim, there is a chance to bid on other teams' coordinators - these are listed in the 'public options'. When the first staff signing sim is run, those who have bids will make their decision. If you had a bid for one rejected, you then have the opportunity to sign from your private options in the second sim.

Private options
The 'private options" for every position are staff only you have the chance to sign, and can do so in either staffsigning week 1 or 2.
All you have to do is pick the one you like.

Autofill
If you sim past staffsigning without having filled your staff, the AI will fill the staff for you.

Out of Money?
If you do not have money left on your budget to fill a coaching position, your team will promote one of your position coaches to serve for the season. While they are cheap, this is not recommendable.

Coach Retirement
Most unemployed coaches will get jobs elsewhere. Only the most succesful/reputable unemployed coaches are kept in the leaguefile for next season, where they will appear as private options for the teams they would most like to play for.

Coach Progression
Most coaches start out mediocre (do not let the ½, 1 and 1½ stars mislead you, this is the norm) depending on a range of factors (including but not limited to factors such as , success, intelligence, morale) your coaches will progress and become better.

Coach Attributes
Intelligence – affects for a range of things including scouting, training, and playcalling
Preparation– affects playcalling and strategy
Discipline – Matters for dealing with players with low morale and low work ethic, affects tolerance of players with negative traits
Motivating – Matters for morale and on field performance
Loyalty – Matters for contract extension and for the likelihood he will accept job offers from other teams (if he is a coordinator)
Leadership – matters for on field performance, morale
Charisma – affects chance to sign players and morale
Flexibility – affects efficiency when forced to use other schemes than his preferred one
Coach Offense – affects playcalling, training
Coach Defense– affects playcalling, training
Assess Potential – used for finding high potential players in recruiting
Assess Ability – affects amount of scout points
Recruiting – increases effect of recruiting points
Scouting– affects amount of recruiting points and finding high potential players
Youngsters – affect training on young players
Attention to Detail – affect training of elite players
Development – affects all training
Physical Training – affects Physical and athletic training
Position Training (QB, OL, LB, DB etc) – affects training of the specific position

[AKH]

GamePlans
Gameplans reflect what you practice and prepare for a game. Some give a variety of small bonuses in different situations or when players perform specific tasks. Some affect ball distribution and some affect how the game is called.

Each coach will have his own preferences on this, so if you are letting coaches call your games (or playing in a league with custom playbooks/gameplans disabled) be sure to consider this when hiring a coach. A coach's preferences here also affects the kind of plays he will have in his playbook.


Offense
Attitude
Affects playcalling, a little more likely to go for it on 4th down and onside kicks. Also affects penalties.

Focus
Affects successrate of selection AND the inverse.

Tempo
Affects clock consumption.

Passing
affects succesrate for selected range, with minor penalties to the others.

Pass to
Affects targeting of players and minor bonus to passing.

Primary Receiver
Affects targeting on passes.

Running Focus
Minor bonus to run type.

Running Backs
Affects performance on given task.

Backfield
Affect distribution of snaps.

Tight Ends
Affects performance on given task.

Defense
Attitude
Affects tackling, Fumbles, missed tackles, interceptions, penalties.

Focus
Minor bonuses/penalties versus play type.

Primary Coverage
Affects performance of players coverage.

Defensive Line
Affects performance on given task.

Linebackers
Affects performance on given task.

Player Radio
Affects penalties, teamplay bonuses and more.

Match CBs to WRs
Affects play selection, will attempt to have at least as many CBs on the field as there are wrs. (i.e. selecting 335, nickel and dime plays when offense lines up in shotgun and spread.)

[AKH]

Moved here from earlier version guides. They need updating to reflect the newest changes and additions - but are on a general level still fairly reliable.