Computer Passes Too Often To Running Back

Action PC Football's greatest sin?

Computer Passes Too Often To Running Back

Remember yesterday’s post? Well, guess what? It gets worse.

We lost to Alabama by 3 points on a last second 52 yard field goal.

Now, that’s normally enough to make me pretty upset. However, the final stats really got to me:

Believe it or not, Kurt Page actually was a better passer than Vince Sutton in 1984. You wouldn’t notice that from this game, though. Page went 6 for 18 for only 53 yards, really struggling against the Alabama defense. Sutton, meanwhile, went lights out, going 13 for 16 for over 150 yards.

But that’s actually not awful. I chose to protect against the run far too often, figuring that my cornerback advantage would take care of Alabama’s passing game. I probably should have dropped back to a nickle more often, and might have been wise to consider going into a zone from time to time. And we probably could have blitzed a bit more often, too.

I’m also not necessarily all that worried about our inability to catch the ball, though I will note that Edwards and Woods both have 9 ratings as receivers. Perhaps I passed too often when they were looking for the pass.

The part that upsets me, though, is how often Alabama passed successfully to the running backs.

Carruth was 4 for 4 for 45 yards. Moore was 3 for 5 for 37 yards. These two running backs combined for over half the yards that Sutton gathered on offense.

It required me to start double teaming at least one of the running backs on passing downs:

Now — is that really realistic? Or is the game set up to pass the ball too often to the running back?

I’m not going to say that this is a gamebreaker — not yet, that is. However, I’m becoming particularly interested in testing out other football games to see what the competition looks like. This strikes me as a ridiculous way to program the AI, and is almost certainly a design flaw.

What do you think?