Self Evals: Grade Yourself as an HD Coach Topic

wildcat98
Posts: 759 (0)
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That's a very good record, Stinenavy! How would you grade yourself on the PROCESS you take to achieve those results?
5/7/2014 8:03 PM
zbrent716
Posts: 1970 (0)
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90 1 58 77
Prospect
Recruiting: (C+) I get the plus because I rarely lose battles, but almost invariably I end up battling (and winning) for a guy who isn't *really* worth the effort.

Player Development: (A) I keep track of this and rarely, if ever have someone leave development on the table for individuals, while still reaching A+ in the respective D by senior year (even had a respectable combo defense last season).

Team Game Planning: (A-) I don't love this as a category, as it ties so directly to Player Game Planning (and Depth Chart, for that matter). I don't often have the most talented team, but I tend to win a fair amount that I "shouldn't." I'm also among a handful of owners enjoying solid success with a zone D, which means thinking more about the game planning than most people running Man or Press have to.
Player Game Planning: (A-) See Team Game Planning.

Team Development: (A+) Small sample size, since I've only left 1 team, but I took a SimAI team and built them into an A+ D3 powerhouse with multiple titles, recruited an owner to take it over when I left, and kept track of it/him for seasons afterward (while he kept it at a very high level).

Overall: (B-B+). I think of myself as solidly in the second tier of coaches, with potential to move up. Past 5 years are 1 Final Four, 3 other Sweet 16, and a PI championship and 4 seasons of 23+ wins in the top conference in the World (Tark GLV). 14 seasons at D2 so far though, and only 1 NT appearance, so I clearly have work to do yet.
5/7/2014 8:04 PM
wildcat98
Posts: 759 (0)
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Do you think you'll ever try your hand at D1, Zbrent?
5/7/2014 8:12 PM
nachopuzzle
Posts: 1427 (0)
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105 2
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Recruiting: (B) Don't lose many battles, but always feel a little short on talent.
Player Development: (A-) Found it hard to max out in skills and IQ.
Team Gameplanning: (A) Given my B in recruiting, I'd better be good at game planning.
Player Gameplanning: (B+) Still haven't figured out to exploit offensive match-ups.
Team Development: (A-) It's very rare that a team of mine goes down in prestige.

Overall: (B+) Great winning percentage, yet nothing to brag about to my friends.
5/7/2014 8:18 PM
killbatman
Posts: 523 (0)
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I like the idea and I changed the last category a little bit.  Seems to me that how you improve/worsen a team you take over is nearly the same thing as your overall rating.

Recruiting: (A-)  I'm very good at identifying talent, particularly the less obvious guys who still end up valuable role players.  Usually do well with battles and the poker aspects of recruiting, although I do tend to be too stubborn sometimes and hurt myself.

Player Development: (A)  It's not completely trivial, but after lots of experience, I feel like I have this mastered.  Not an A+ for the times I randomly do something wrong out of negligence.  e.g. forget to give SH to someone who needs it, which happened recently.

Team Game Planning: (B)  Honestly it's tough to know how good I am at this and the next one.  Lots of times I load a plan and it doesn't go like I expected..well, was it a bad plan?  Did I get unlucky?  Not always easy to tell.  I think I'm at least above average, but I tend to be fairly conservative about team settings at this point.  I've had some outside-the-box ideas not go well.

Player Game Planning: (B-)  Similar to above, but slightly more unpredictability here, or just more I don't fully appreciate about how the sim handles things.

(extra category) Team Vision: (A)  This is highly related to recruiting, but it's the multi-season plan for the team.  I could probably write pages about just this, but generally I mean thinking 1 or more seasons ahead whenever you do anything.  In terms of player types, skills fitting together, covering weaknesses, etc etc.  Part of it is just fully understanding what you have now.  I really think learning to get better at this category is what helped me go from tier 2--constantly making NTs but almost never FFs/titles--to regularly competing for titles.

Overall: (A-, maybe A)  I think it's 12 national titles between my two ids.  Several of the top10 RPI seasons of all time at D3.  I very very rarely come across coaches that I feel got the better of me, but I have no doubt there are people better at HD.
5/7/2014 8:38 PM
wildcat98
Posts: 759 (0)
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I like your "Team Vision" category a LOT! I didn't mean for people to have to use MY categories--I just thought they might be a useful jumping off point. I feel like I've actually regressed in what you call "Team Vision" since I moved from Campbell to Villanova 4 seasons ago. At Campbell, I really DID look several seasons ahead, and think more long-term. At Nova, I've fallen into the "trap of now", as I struggle just to keep my nose above water in the tougher division of a 11/12 full conference.
5/7/2014 8:45 PM
gillispie1
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Posted by ettaexpress on 5/7/2014 7:22:00 PM (view original):
Posted by wildcat98 on 5/7/2014 7:19:00 PM (view original):
Posted by ettaexpress on 5/7/2014 7:15:00 PM (view original):
Is it possible to not be good at development? Pretty much all you have to be able to do is see colors and do basic math. 
Knowing how to distribute practice time to maximize potentials IS an acquired skill, yes.
Certainly not a tough one then. If it's red, don't practice it much. If it's blue, practice it a lot. If it's black...eh depends on what other options you have or how important the attribute is.

Player development IRL is very much a skill and one that a lot of coaches lack, but on this game pretty much everyone gets to the same IQ level and potential ratings are impossible to miss so deciding what to practice is pretty easy.
a lot of people think this... until they ask someone else to look at their practice plan and it gets ripped to shreds. if you'd like some evidence, post yours, im sure you'll get plenty of takers on the ripping to shreds part ;)

edit: actually, dont. the concept of your team and roles is big in practice planning, and you cant really get into that with 4 players... so never mind. but yeah, its definitely a skill of sorts. its the least important of all those skills, but a skill nonetheless.
5/7/2014 8:45 PM
ettaexpress
Posts: 1143 (0)
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Yeah, I doubt it. Someone might disagree with how I've done it, but the way I've done it is for a reason, and my player development at Marietta was pretty solid. Guy that no one thought was anything is averaging almost 17 a game right now, if that tells you anything.
5/7/2014 8:48 PM
wildcat98
Posts: 759 (0)
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Posted by gillispie1 on 5/7/2014 8:46:00 PM (view original):
Posted by ettaexpress on 5/7/2014 7:22:00 PM (view original):
Posted by wildcat98 on 5/7/2014 7:19:00 PM (view original):
Posted by ettaexpress on 5/7/2014 7:15:00 PM (view original):
Is it possible to not be good at development? Pretty much all you have to be able to do is see colors and do basic math. 
Knowing how to distribute practice time to maximize potentials IS an acquired skill, yes.
Certainly not a tough one then. If it's red, don't practice it much. If it's blue, practice it a lot. If it's black...eh depends on what other options you have or how important the attribute is.

Player development IRL is very much a skill and one that a lot of coaches lack, but on this game pretty much everyone gets to the same IQ level and potential ratings are impossible to miss so deciding what to practice is pretty easy.
a lot of people think this... until they ask someone else to look at their practice plan and it gets ripped to shreds. if you'd like some evidence, post yours, im sure you'll get plenty of takers on the ripping to shreds part ;)

edit: actually, dont. the concept of your team and roles is big in practice planning, and you cant really get into that with 4 players... so never mind. but yeah, its definitely a skill of sorts. its the least important of all those skills, but a skill nonetheless.
I would definitely agree with your point that it's the least important skill, on a relative basis. A player missing out on a few points because a black skill never went red isn't nearly as important as game-planning and recruiting, for sure.
5/7/2014 8:50 PM
colonels19
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B+
5/7/2014 8:51 PM
ettaexpress
Posts: 1143 (0)
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The concept of my practice planning now, before and I'm guessing in the theoretical future is going to be to maximize talent development. The concept of team and roles comes more in selection and recruitment of players. What you see in a player that causes you to recruit them is supported by your talent development. It shouldn't be altered by it.

I will admit to getting a little bit of help my first year from someone in site mail, but that was mainly related to how many points it takes to maintain a skill level, diminishing returns, etc. Stuff that really should be covered better on the site anyway.
5/7/2014 8:52 PM
crwkmw123
Posts: 59 (0)
Veteran
20 1
Prospect
Recruiting:   D+  I think I have improved this from an F in the past couple of seasons, but still struggle to figure out how some guys get the players they get.

Player Development:  B  Took me awhile of bouncing around these forums to figure out the mathematics behind it.  Now that I've got it, I am sure I can bring this to an A fairly soon.

Team Game Planning:  C-  Sometimes I think I do really well at this.  I pull off a nice upset partially because of a strategy I tried.  But, probably just as often, I shoot myself in the foot by overplaying some strategy and I lose to a weak SIM team.

Player Game Planning:  C+  I have had pretty good success with double teaming the right guy, and getting the ball in the hands of the right guy with distro.  

Team Vision:  F  It stands to reason that since I am just now getting better at recruiting decent players, that it will take a little longer to pinpoint the players who will mesh together 2 or 3 years down the line.

Overall:  C-   And that is probably being nice.

5/7/2014 10:22 PM (edited)
zbrent716
Posts: 1970 (0)
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Posted by wildcat98 on 5/7/2014 8:12:00 PM (view original):
Do you think you'll ever try your hand at D1, Zbrent?
I don't know whether I ever will, but it's not in the near future plans. I really have come to like the sweet spot of D2, particularly the GLV conference. It includes top flight competition (seriously, some GLV teams some years would be low end NT teams in D1 I think) with enough variance to keep it interesting.

I really enjoy the tradeoff aspect of player evaluation that you still have at D2 (because no player is without some limitation) and that seems lost at D1 (at least in big 6). The recruiting of D1 intrigues me, but it's not worth the reduced game-planning that (I think) goes with fielding a stacked team against another stacked team. If I do decide to take the jump up, the plan for now is only really consider it after I've won a NT (or multiple) at D2.
5/7/2014 11:19 PM
wildcat98
Posts: 759 (0)
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I'd be interested to see how a coach like you, who's had a lot of sustained success at D2/D3 would fare on moving up. I'm guessing you'd do very well, particularly once you got used to the differences in recruiting.

The thing you mentioned about GLV teams being low end D1 NT teams reminded me of something. I've been thinking it'd be cool to be able to play "cross-division" games once in awhile--maybe once per season. I know we can do that in exhibitions, but it's not the same, I don't think.
5/8/2014 12:59 AM
mikvitu
Posts: 304 (0)
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1 50
Rookie

Recruiting:C- (I've take some crappy players but had some really good ones despite how little I knew at the time. I still overextend myself early to guys I can't get and then have to play it safe the rest of the time which handcuffs me. This started as a C+ and then I downgraded myself after writing it haha.)
Player Development:C+ (Everyone above 35 WE will max out but I'm still working on getting the low WE guys up efficiently.)
Team Game Planning:B (I don't shoot myself in the foot but I doubt my game planning wins me many either.)
Player Game Planning:A (I run minutes as opposed to fatigue so I count depth chart as a big part of player game planning and I consider myself pretty good at it.)
Team Vision:B (I've only graduated one class but they made the NT their senior year and I had victories over the two best teams in our conference.)
Overall:B (For a new coach I don't think I'm that bad but I might be a couple seasons or classes away from making a deep tourney run.)

5/8/2014 2:20 AM
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