Last year was my first year and I did a pretty awesome job had an awesome team and won conference coach of the year, won the conference regular season, land had a DIII AA. I retuned everyone and was prepare to go on a run.

I'll admit I had some scheduling issues. I went 5-5 in the non-con. All my wins were against awful teams and losses were against some great and good teams. Schedule bad teams doesn't help. I lost a couple games to teams I was as good as or better which was frustrating. Now in my first conference game I get blown out by a team I was far better than.

I'm doing nothing different, only a few practice minutes switch ups ,than I did last year. It's early in the conference season and this is a general question but what could be e issues other than different scheduling?

Being a newb I'm frustrated losing to teams that are not as good as me on paper.

mr_shizz...in the future, I highly recommend you post in the main HD forum. People don't visit the specific world forums all that often, so you'll get more responses over there. 

I'm assuming when looking at your team, your surprise comes from being defeated by teams with lower overall team ratings. Do not base judgments on overall team ratings or even overall ratings for players. Those numbers contain essentially meaningless information (i.e. WE and DUR), and they also do not tell you which ratings are most important.  

So that said, the greatest issue by far with your team is poor ATH/DEF. Those two ratings, along with SPD, are the most important in HD. Your team's ATH average is 32 and your defense average is 31. That is really poor for D3 and it is why you are losing games. You have a few decent defensive players, but four of your key players have DEF ratings below 20 and poor ATH ratings to go along with it. That is killing you.

In order to have a decent team, you need to aim for at least an average of 40 ATH/SPD/DEF. That will put you in the running for the postseason. But, until you approach 50 in those three categories, you likely won't be ready to compete in the postseason. 

Now, I am over simplifying things and not even mentioning the other ratings (which are also important). But, it's really important for you to understand how critical ATH/SPD/DEF are. They are the building blocks of a successful team. 

If you want to have a greater understanding of this game and win some games, you absolutely must read this thread: "How to win at D2 and D3" 

Good luck and if you have any more questions, feel free to shoot me a sitemail.

I appreciate the help and the link! I didn't expect to win right away but I'd hit a wall and wasn't sure where to go. I'll read the guide and touch base after. Thanks!