I was wondering if anyone has been successful without practicing team offense or defense? It has been a viable strategy in Gridiron Dynasty. Anyone have experience with 0 team practice?

I've seen some zone defenses that, while I'm not positive were set for 0 minutes by the opposing team, obviously did not have much time devoted to the scheme. We're talking C-/C/C+ IQ's with a few D's spread in. Obviously, it wasn't a lockdown defense, but it was, at least, functional and actually did a better job against me than I thought it should have. Like I said, don't know if it was 0 minutes, but I'd wager it wasn't any more than 5 minutes, that's for sure. I think zone is probably the only set you could get away with that in though. M2M and FCP would have you fouling non-stop I suspect.

I don't think you could get away with zeroing out an offense though. Definitely not with the seeming lack of consequence that you do in GD. The IQ's here are a definite part of the game.  

I might just get a team and try it for a few seasons and see the outcome.

I picked a team in Phelan just to try it out. Perfect situation with 6 incoming freshmen and 5 Seniors.

this is intriguing...pls update as it develops

the only way for this to make a big difference is if you get players with lots of high potential though, right? I mean otherwise what's the point when everyone maxxes out in most things anyway? I guess you'd max out quicker, which, if the players were good potential would presumably give you an advantage over your opponents - unless they are good at recruiting, practice planning and distro setting and class balancing, but this could be a shortcut if it works...

Here is the basics. I am sure someone has tried something similar before.

I took a team in PA. Good central access to a large amount of recruits.

Allegheny

I have 6 incoming freshmen
I have 5 returning seniors
1 have 1 returning Soph.

I will cut the Soph (is there a major drawback to this strategy?) I inherited next season which will give me down the line

6 Seniors
5 Juniors
1 redshirt Soph

-I am looking for high potential  and high WE players.
-I am willing to sacrifice initial player skills for long term potential.
-I will start 5 freshmen and redshirt the other freshmen so I can maximize their learning.
-For the first 2 seasons I will practice 0 minutes towards team.
-The 3rd season I will practice 0 minutes until there is about 7-10 games left in the season then evaluate and consider practicing team minutes
in preparation for my first class Senior season.

I am still relatively new to HD, any obvious flaws?

There's no penalty to cutting a player as long as you didn't recruit him

IQ matters alot in HD and quite a bit of my players max out even with 50min of IQ practice. Personally, I don't think this will work. 

Oh well I am willing to throw away a team to learn from experimenting. Even if it does not work I will learn a lot first hand about player improvement and how much team IQ matters.

to be clear - are you going no minutes in just defense, or both offense and defense? will you run zone?

Posted by dacj501 on 1/2/2011 5:42:00 PM (view original):
to be clear - are you going no minutes in just defense, or both offense and defense? will you run zone?

I will go no minutes in both offense and defense. I will do that for 2 seasons and about the first 20 games of season 3. I will then evaluate if I want to start practicing offense/defense to prepare for my teams first recruiting class as they get ready to turn Seniors.

I will be going after high potential players so I am hoping they don't max out very easily.

Do NOT pick a FB team to do this with.  They're completely useless unless you're around B's.

Posted by rednu on 1/2/2011 1:49:00 PM (view original):
I've seen some zone defenses that, while I'm not positive were set for 0 minutes by the opposing team, obviously did not have much time devoted to the scheme. We're talking C-/C/C+ IQ's with a few D's spread in. Obviously, it wasn't a lockdown defense, but it was, at least, functional and actually did a better job against me than I thought it should have. Like I said, don't know if it was 0 minutes, but I'd wager it wasn't any more than 5 minutes, that's for sure. I think zone is probably the only set you could get away with that in though. M2M and FCP would have you fouling non-stop I suspect.

I don't think you could get away with zeroing out an offense though. Definitely not with the seeming lack of consequence that you do in GD. The IQ's here are a definite part of the game.  

I agree that zone is the way to go if you are trying to go with zero on defense, but not because you will be able to "get away with it".

Instead, a crappy zone is more difficult for a human coach to take advantage of than a crappy M2M or crappy FCP.

In M2M, the human coach could bump up the distro on a good scorer and probably have the guy go for 30 while fouling out a few opponents along the way. In FCP, as someone mentioned, I think you'd sent the opposing team to the line way too often to steal many wins. With zone, a balanced team will still probably tear you apart, but one that relied on one or two players might be ripe for a loss if they have off nights (not because the zone is effective, mind you, but just if you happen to get lucky with the RNG).

I will give zone a try. I do not expect to compete the first couple seasons since I will be starting true freshmen from the start, and I will be starting freshmen that will probably be lacking in skills but making up in potential. Recruiting starts tomorrow. I will post the players I sign plus their potential.