Keying A Man On Defense

Be a man with a plan

Keying A Man On Defense

You’ve got to do your homework.

I learned that after some trial and error. You see, my current Action PC Football project involves a complete rethinking of the 1984 college football season. I’ve split what I consider the 64 most interesting team (more or less) into 8 geographic divisions of 8 teams each. Each team has a 14 game schedule, home and away, and we’ll have an 8 team playoff featuring the winners at the end:

My goal is to play every game, taking control of the home team.

One of the first games of my season featured Kentucky hosting Auburn. 1984, of course, was the year of Bo Jackson, who absolutely dominated as Auburn’s key running back.

I decided that I was going to put a stop to him.

Now, the right way to do this in Action PC Football is to pay close attention when you’re on defense. Think about what the offense is likely to do, think about which player you absolutely don’t want to be beaten by, and call a defense designed specifically to stop what you think the offense will do.

This works a lot better than I thought it would.

Here’s an example. This comes from the start of the game. It was 2nd and 10 for Auburn on their own 25 yard line. We decided to key Bo Jackson after Auburn ran with Agee on first down for nothing:

I didn’t know which way Jackson was likely to go, and so I decided to leave the defensive line as it was by default. We played the run, keyed Jackson, and basically dared Washington to throw.

Auburn’s receivers weren’t particularly good. Because of our advantage (the numbers displayed for guys in the backfield are receiving ratings), we decided to play man, and had enough guys left over to keep one defensive back in the zone.

Now, if you’ve played a lot of Action PC Football, you know that the computer loves to dump it out to a running back when everybody is covered. This frequently leads to big gains and a lot of frustration. The “right” call can still wind up being wrong.

Well, in this case, we guessed right even though we guessed they would run:

I’m not sure I can visualize how Calhoun made it all the way over to where Jackson was if he was guarding Weygand. I suppose some of these things have to be taken on faith. Maybe the computer called for a short pass of some sort.

Anyway, after following this strategy we were able to successfully stop Bo Jackson:

2.2 yards per carry and only 41 total rushing yards on 19 runs is a victory in my mind.

We didn’t key Jackson on every play, and we made sure to defend the pass in obvious passing situations. However, when it came time to run, I made sure to not only key Jackson, but to try to predict which way the line might block based on how the offense lined up.

Of course, we lost in the end, since Kentucky’s offense isn’t exactly rated well:

In the end, however, I count this as a strategic victory.

Remember: the key to success on defense is to fully understand what the other team will likely do on offense. Find their key playmaker, focus on shutting him down, and hope that your running backs do a better job than ours did.