The Official NCAA 14 Flexbone Offense Thread

[Ragnar53]

What I find absolutely hilarious is that how now the current flexbone is designed around using your QB and letting him keep the ball.



The 3 main plays are now



1. Triple
2a. Zone Kick
2b. Zone Option


Run out of normal and Tight.



With how Navy and Army's best athletes are now at the QB position instead of the B back position they WANT teams to take the B back out of the game. The QB usually averages the most carries on the team (upwards of 20+). The B back gets 8-10 touches, the A backs gets 4-5. Depending on the opponent, they may not even get a single touch.



So if your QB is getting 20+ carries a game, the game is ironically programmed right with the current evolution of the offense lol.

[Rieux]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ragnar53

What I find absolutely hilarious is that how now the current flexbone is designed around using your QB and letting him keep the ball. The 3 main plays are now 1. Triple 2a. Zone Kick 2b. Zone Option Run out of normal and Tight. With how Navy and Army's best athletes are now at the QB position instead of the B back position they WANT teams to take the B back out of the game. The QB usually averages the most carries on the team (upwards of 20+). The B back gets 8-10 touches, the A backs gets 4-5. Depending on the opponent, they may not even get a single touch. So if your QB is getting 20+ carries a game, the game is ironically programmed right with the current evolution of the offense lol.

Interesting point! Navy's QB has twice as many carries as the #2 guy. It looks like Air Force still prioritizes the other backs, and Army's QB is about 50/50 between him and their most-used back. Still though, that's a pretty huge shift from the norm of 5+ years ago.

I'm a Texas guy, so I love the Wishbone in particular and associate it with DKR and James Street's UT squads. I rarely use it in NCAA 14 because of how infrequently the fullback gets the ball - if the landscape is shifting so that NCAA 14's option game has become accurate retroactively, that's pretty funny, and also good news!

With all the service academies, but Navy in particular, I'd love to know what percentage of each back's carries are coming from designed runs to him vs. how many are coming as option reads. With Navy's guy having twice as many as the next guy, I assume he's getting a lot of designed runs, but a disparity that big says he's gotta also be keeping the ball on option plays a lot - the alternative is that they're just not calling many option plays, and using a huge proportion of designed runs, but that doesn't seem likely. So it's definitely got me wondering how and why Navy's, and to a lesser extent Army's, QBs are ending up with the keep read on so many option plays.

For everyone else's reference, as of this writing in late November in the 2019 season, Navy's QB Malcolm Perry has 220 carries at 6.2 yards per. Nelson Smith, who is their B-back/FB judging from the stats, has 109 carries at 4.9 per. Their A-backs, Jamale Caruthers and CJ Williams have, respectively, only 58 and 46 carries each (7.7ypc and 5.0ypc, though Williams has 7 catches for 210 yards to Caruthers's 2 for 57). [and correction, maybe - Caruthers is actually listed as another FB playing only 6 of the team's 10 games on sports-reference, while Williams is listed as a SB. That sure looks more like a slotback's stat line though, especially given the # of carries Smith has gotten - he's gotta be their main B-back, but I'm too lazy to look it up more than I already have ]

Pretty interesting stuff. Might be time to incorporate the 'bones into my offense!

[Ragnar53]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rieux

Interesting point! Navy's QB has twice as many carries as the #2 guy. It looks like Air Force still prioritizes the other backs, and Army's QB is about 50/50 between him and their most-used back. Still though, that's a pretty huge shift from the norm of 5+ years ago. I'm a Texas guy, so I love the Wishbone in particular and associate it with DKR and James Street's UT squads. I rarely use it in NCAA 14 because of how infrequently the fullback gets the ball - if the landscape is shifting so that NCAA 14's option game has become accurate retroactively, that's pretty funny, and also good news! With all the service academies, but Navy in particular, I'd love to know what percentage of each back's carries are coming from designed runs to him vs. how many are coming as option reads. With Navy's guy having twice as many as the next guy, I assume he's getting a lot of designed runs, but a disparity that big says he's gotta also be keeping the ball on option plays a lot - the alternative is that they're just not calling many option plays, and using a huge proportion of designed runs, but that doesn't seem likely. So it's definitely got me wondering how and why Navy's, and to a lesser extent Army's, QBs are ending up with the keep read on so many option plays. For everyone else's reference, as of this writing in late November in the 2019 season, Navy's QB Malcolm Perry has 220 carries at 6.2 yards per. Nelson Smith, who is their B-back/FB judging from the stats, has 109 carries at 4.9 per. Their A-backs, Jamale Caruthers and CJ Williams have, respectively, only 58 and 46 carries each (7.7ypc and 5.0ypc, though Williams has 7 catches for 210 yards to Caruthers's 2 for 57). [and correction, maybe - Caruthers is actually listed as another FB playing only 6 of the team's 10 games on sports-reference, while Williams is listed as a SB. That sure looks more like a slotback's stat line though, especially given the # of carries Smith has gotten - he's gotta be their main B-back, but I'm too lazy to look it up more than I already have ] Pretty interesting stuff. Might be time to incorporate the 'bones into my offense!

With Army it was that Ahmad Bradshaw was their best athlete and they ran a lot of midline for him. They took the B back, he pulled, then just ran straight up the middle. With Kelvin Hopkins however, they ran a lot of zone options to the outside to get him and Kell Walker (SB) into space. Hopkins would have have a lot more carries this year like he did last year but he's been injured for the past 5-6 games and as a result hasn't looked like himself.


With Navy, Malcom Perry is far and away their best runner so if it came down to him keeping it and making a play or tossing it on an option Navy's HC is alright with him keeping it. I'd say about 70% of it is designed runs (That's what Zone Kick is. It's just QB Power from under center and using the motioned A back as an additional blocker)and the other 30% him not willing to risk an errant pitch go array. Turnovers kill the flexbone offense. You'd much rather just eat the negative yardage if you can't make the read in time. All it takes is 1 right read on an option pitch and you just made back all that yardage and then some anyway.


As for Airforce, they rely much more on misdirection (they run a lot more more reverses and jet sweeps for example) and play action passing than the other academies. They have by far the best throwing QB out of any of the other service academies also.

[Rieux]

Sweet, thanks for clarifying. Definitely gonna check out Navy's and maybe Army's box scores from this last week and catch Navy's bowl game. In fact I see Navy is playing Houston tonight (11/30) - might watch out for that one, Holgo's offense vs. Navy's should be interesting.

[briansteigler]

Has anyone had success running the GA tech style triple option in any dynasties? or are there any threads about it?

[OBinKC]

Quote: Originally Posted by briansteigler

Has anyone had success running the GA tech style triple option in any dynasties? or are there any threads about it?

I tried to run it in my Idaho dynasty. It’s definitely possible, but your offensive line needs to be able to hold blocks or else the point of attack gets clogged up and you don’t get space to make your pitches, etc. To be fair, I play with fatigue off so run defense is at its absolute best and I can’t wear it down. It may work better with fatigue off.

The ironic thing about it, at least for me, is that the triple option from Flexbone and Wingbone is designed to even the playing field when you’re up against a much stronger defense. But on this game, a much stronger defensive line/linebackers will make it less effective and you’re better off running from the spread.

[OBinKC]

Sorry for digging up an old post, but I feel that I left this thread on a somewhat negative note. After using the Flexbone for quite some time now, I’ve really bought into this great system. And it can be the most fun in dynasties as well, because you need to recruit the system guys and you feel a satisfaction in building a program in a very unique way when reaping the benefits. Thanks to The Red Scourge running a triple option dynasty for the community right now, I’m probably going to get my Idaho dynasty reports going again.

The one thing I didn’t see mentioned in this thread (or at least in a way that turned on the lightbulb in my head) was the difference in pre-snap motion between the different Triple Options and the Triple Option Counter plays. Before realizing that they were different, I could never perfect my timing to make the give read. That’s because, for example, in the Flexbone Normal, the Triple Option Ctr Str pre-snap motion takes longer than the other three triple options from that formation. The other motions give just a split second before the snap, but not exactly instantly. So if you’re getting used to the timing on some, others will throw you off.

So my advice is to look at the pre-snap play art for each triple option. If the A-back’s motion angle is more pronounced, the motion takes longer to snap and you get more time to settle in for the read. If the motion angle is more shallow, it’s a quicker snap. I prefer the longer motions myself. So for the Flex Normal formation, use Ctr Str and flip as needed. But you should pick the one you’re most comfortable with and use that one only, at least in the beginning.

But yeah, I love this system as a whole. Lots of good stuff to learn and perfect.

[shooter135]

Glad to see one of the best threads ever is active again. Did you ever find a fix for running a straight dive? Every time I call it the DL pinches and blows it up.