2006 Week 1

The other day I played a game between two random D-1AA schools, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Maine, to warm up for 08. I played a perfect stick-mode game on default AA sliders. What made it notably fun was that my WR#80 caught 16 passes for 399 yards and 6 touchdowns. He became unstoppable out there, even though the first half of the game was tense. And he was my only weapon. Because of him, my QB#18 finished with some insane stat like 25/29, 542 yards, something like that.

I decided to start a dynasty with UAPB to kill some time, and naturally I scheduled Maine for the first game, hoping to duplicate WR#80's feat. No such luck. Maine came out on defense in a 3-3-5 instead of the 4-2-5 I'd had so much luck with in the play-now game. Still, it was a tense game through the first 3 quarters. I went after WR#80 too much, too early. He caught some passes, true, and racked up big yards (191) but my QB had to spread the ball out a lot more. And against the 3-3-5 my HB#37 had a lot more success (100 yds vs. 18 yds) than against the 4-2-5.

But defense was the game in this one. LE#44, a miserable 52 rated scrub, absolutely destroyed Maine's starting quarterback. I ran the nickel cover 2 NB blitz a lot in passing situations. That helped, but LE#44 just flat beat his man again and again. DT#79 was pretty stout in the middle too. I predict that when he leaves, the whole defense will suffer, even if I get talent that looks better on paper.