The ratings that work - and don't - in NCAA '09 - Hellisan's Blog

Hellisan's Blog

The ratings that work - and don't - in NCAA '09

Posted on May 17, 2009 at 04:02 PM.

First, I apologize for the length of this. I can't seem to write short articles - never have been able to. Second, this would be a helluva lot more useful if it was written within a month of the game's release way back in 2008, I realize that. Still, I find that maybe some insight can be gleaned into what to expect from the next iteration, and maybe it will show a few people out there how to look for these things in the future. Essentially, it ties in with previous articles that I wrote for MaddenMania about not being an OVR collector. The OVR rating is massively misleading and has never been moreso than in NCAA '09.

These observations and opinions are based on hundreds (maybe more!) of hours of playing the game in my online leagues as well as in practice mode. By the term "works" I could mean anything ranging from the ratings simply don't appear to be programmed into the game play, to that it might be programmed in but is ineffectual or doesn't matter within the structure of this game. I will explain as we go along.

Awhile ago, I wrote an article about how in my primary league, the Tradition, I took one of the worst teams in the league and built them up. The way we accomplished that was to take notice of how each rating seemed to affect game play, and build our roster around those observations.

We'll start on offense and work our way to defense. If I don't mention a rating, assume it works as intended.

SPD/ACC (speed and acceleration) - Well, obviously, speed "works." But ACC is a very important part of the equation. Through extensive observation, I have concluded that players with good ACC don't necessarily accelerate faster than other players. But they are faster overall. Due to the lack of "building speed" animations within this game, all of the players pretty much accelerate at the same rate to their top speed. At least it appears this way to me. But I still find ACC to be massively important. 95 SPD, 95 ACC will absolutely walk away from 95 SPD, 85 ACC. I think an equation like ((SPDX3)+ACC)/4 will give you the true effective speed of your player on the field. So for the examples above, the 95/95 guy has an effective on-field speed of 95. the 95/85 guy has an effective on-field speed of around 92.5. So Acceleration is massively important. All my opinion, but a pretty informed one.

BTK (break tackle) - Doesn't work within the structure of 2009 game play. Speed (and more subtly elusiveness) is king with this game. I'm not saying that it absolutely doesn't work. I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but what I am sure of is that the maniacal gang-tackling engine really thwarts inside runners. Essentially what I am saying when I say BTK doesn't work, is that if you take two identical runners except for one having an average BTK rating and the other having a high BTK rating, you can play many games and not notice a trend in the number of tackles they actually BROKE. It doesn't matter how big or strong a runner is, or high of a BTK rating he has, the gang tackling will overload anytime there are two or more tacklers in the vicinity of a ball carrier. Don't get me wrong, I run inside all the time, it is the primary weapon on my offensive arsenal and it's very possible. You can slip through arm tackles (not credited with a broken tackle in stats), fall forward, but you do all that by AVOIDING direct contact and especially avoiding being hit by two players at once. With my Purdue team I have a true sophomore halfback named Dallas Potts. He's big, relatively strong, 91 OVR already, and has a 92 BTK rating. He's absolutely worthless due to his 91 speed rating and inability to slip through traffic inside. Instead of break tackle, go for:

TRK (trucking) - Works very well. A power runner in NCAA '09 is one that has a great trucking rating. Get him on the fringes and run over defensive backs almost every time with the hit stick. Trucking players doesn't only work when they are coming right at you; you can truck through tackle attempts from the side and even slightly behind and to the side with amazing results. But again, if you try and truck through the middle of the line with a lot of defensive players coming at you, you're going to have the halfback get gang brutalized more often than not. The gang tackling animations will overload everything. When you run up the middle, you primarily want to be pressing NO BUTTONS, especially the speed burst. This tends to minimize big hits/gang tackles, and maximizes your halfback's ability to fall forward at the end of runs.

CIT (Catch in Traffic) - Doesn't work as well as it should. In fact, let's cover this and RTE (route running) right here. When recruiting a receiver, job 1 is to see if he has speed. Anything under A speed and he will be relatively useless in a typical online dynasty where everybody is recruiting speed. People will have different experiences, but for me, 94 speed is the minimum at which you can then start to look at these other ratings. To me, one of the most annoying things about this game has been the fact that speed seems to matter above all else. I have a receiver named Dennis Lee. Lee has 92 speed, great route running rating, great catch in traffic rating, you name it. I figured he would make a great slot receiver - a Wes Welker if you will. The guy cannot get open! And in the last game I played against a user, he finally got open one time, standing alone on the sideline, and I zipped him a pass. He took a relatively normal hit and promptly dropped it. This is supposed to be my possession receiver and he leads the team in drops despite having the fewest catches of my top 3 WRs.

BSH (Block Shedding) - Works great! This is one of the ratings that I might have assumed would not be that useful had I not given it a chance. Ever since season 1 I started noticing that my players that had good BSH ratings tended to flow to the ball better. This rating enhances your overall team speed so much that it's not even funny. In fact I would call this rating the foundation of my defense. It is what we want out of every player we recruit on defense. The only position I don't feel it is absolutely necessary to have it, is free safety. They tend to be the last line of defense and often get to the ball unimpeded. I'd definitely rather have it than not at any position. But for instance, if I see a fast outside linebacker with great strength and tackling but a D BSH rating, I won't even recruit him. It's especially great if you can get a couple of corners with good BSH ratings because everybody loves to run outside in this game. If I know that my corners are going to be getting off their blocks more often than not, I don't have to sit there trying to contain BOTH edges every play. I'm just looking to get good gap matchups and let my team's talent do the rest.

PUR (Pursuit) - Again, works great. I'm covering these "secondary" ratings more than the main ones simply because these are the ones I feel people overlook. If your team averages a 70 pursuit rating, then you're going to be constantly switching around just to keep things under control. It will almost appear as if your team isn't making an effort to get to the ball. Whereas if your team averages say 85, you don't have to do that as much. Again, it gives you the opportunity to let your team's talent take over. If they are taking the right angles and "hustling" toward the ball as a team (which is what I feel this rating accomplishes) you are a step ahead.

PRC (Play Recognition) - Not so sure. I haven't been able to determine where this fits in with awareness. Does a middle linebacker's AWR or his PRC determine how he reacts to play action? I honestly haven't been able to figure it out with any degree of certainty. Due to the way BSH and PUR have treated me, I do look for it.

PRS (Press) - It works, but not as you might think. I bring it up because it really should be called "How well he can press without getting burned." It doesn't actually seem to govern how WELL a corner jams a receiver. I had a corner with 99 press rating, and he wasn't exactly Quentin Jammer as far as messing up routes at the line of scrimmage. He did that as well as all my other corners, no better. The only difference was that if it didn't work he was still in position to make a play.

RLS (Release) - Doesn't seem to work at all. Remember Dennis Lee, the possession receiver I mentioned earlier? 96 release rating! Doesn't seem to matter, he gets held up as much as any of my other receivers do around the line of scrimmage. In addition to fringy speed he has sub-par acceleration. So to sum up....

Dennis Lee: 5'10", 92 SPD, 85 ACC, 91 CIT, 93 SPC, 88 RTE, 96 RLS = hot garbage

Travis Campbell: 6'3", 94 SPD, 93 ACC, 74 CIT, 77 SPC, 78 RTE, 74 RLS = my best young receiver.

PBK/RBK (pass/run block) - Completely useless IMO. They integrated the secondary block ratings and I don't think they correlate. If PBK was an average of the run block strength/run block footwork ratings and PBK was an average of the other two, it would make sense to me. But they don't correlate at all. I've tried going with guys that had good PBK/RBK and ignoring the secondary ratings, and going after the guys with the good secondary ratings, and I feel that the secondary ratings work as they should and are the only thing you should be worried about. Sadly, of course, the OVR rating for linemen still appears to be calculated based on the RBK/PBK ratings, which is why OVR ratings for linemen can be very, very misleading. For example... I have a sophomore center, Brian Gant, who is an absolute monster. He's only a 79 OVR but his secondary block ratings are as follows: 97 IBL, 92 RBs, 92 RBF, 86 PBS, 89 PBF.

It was a bit disjointed but if you read through it I hope you found something interesting or of some value to you as a player.

Comments

# 1 SHO @ May 17

Great post. The blocking attributes are really confusing, especially in recruiting.

# 2 GoToledo @ May 17

Very interesting read. I must say as far as I am concerned you seem to be right on with your observations. I didn't think ACC mattered at all, but apparently it does.