...and sometimes we realize how stupid we are. I promise you, after reading this, you won't feel as bad about your biggest HD blunder.

I coach at Occidental (D3) in Allen. Last season, we were pretty dang good, and I planned to make some noise in the NT. This is the projection report from the night before the CT final:

School

Record

SOS

SOS Rank

RPI

RPI Rank

RPI 1-25

RPI 26-50

RPI 51-100

RPI 101-150

RPI 151-200

RPI 200+

6.

Occidental

27-1

0.5827

17

0.6756

4

6-1

2-0

4-0

6-0

0-0

9-0

Then it all went downhill. I lost to a good (but not great) team in the CT final, but I didn't linger on the loss because the NT had arrived. Well, we made some noise alright. We (the 2 seed) lost to the 15 seed in the first round. I was understandably shocked, bewildered, etc. I couldn't understand the 2 game collapse to end what should have been a great season. Until now.

You see, I picked up a team in Rupp around the end of season in Allen. Recruiting passed and it came time to gameplan for the first exhibition game. My new team in Rupp runs Motion/M2M. My Occidental team runs Triangle/Press. When I clicked on the save button on the team gameplan page for my Rupp team, it "glitched" and took me unexpectedly to my Occidental team gameplan page. Thanks to my lack of technological know-how, I left the page without thinking twice and returned to my Rupp team.

Well, (already) long story short, my Occidental team lost that night in the CT final, and the next night in the first round of the NT, and now last night in the first game of the new season. Distraught, I searched the box score for an answer to my problems, then finally opened the PBP, and saw: we were running the motion/man systems that my Rupp team runs. We had been running those sets since I set up the team gameplan for my Rupp team. We had been running sets that we had F and D- IQ's in. Now it makes sense why we, who were so good on defense throughout the year, fouled everything that moved and gave up so many points.

http://whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/playbyplay.aspx?gid=7981358&half=1

Now I know you guys are probably gonna blast me for being so stupid, and I deserve it. I still can't believe that I didn't catch this mistake after reading the PBP of the CT final, and especially after I poured over the NT PBP to see where it all went wrong. It certainly cost me a shot at a deep NT run last year, and I'm just glad that I noticed it now before another season was lost down the drain. And that, folks, is my biggest HD blunder

That sucks.. Happened to me once.. I was suppose to lose the game though so it wasnt as bad but we got killed. I ran a zone defense instead of man. I think I just messed up and clicked zone D when I was trying to click Slow Down.

If you could do that for your non-conference game against Suffolk this year, that'd be extremely nice of you. Just saying.

A couple years ago, my buddy was out of the country for a week or two and left me in charge of his team. I somehow did something similar ... couldn't understand why I went on a losing streak (one that ultimately cost him a NT spot). I felt so bad, I bought him a free season. Not fun.

A couple seasons ago, we had a couple weird late-game collapses.  Not until conf play did I realize it was because I had changed my sets two seasons ago but failed to change the late-game O/D to the normal O/D, oops.

I always have to give myself a sanity check to make sure I am looking at the right team, especially during recruiting time when I have multiple windows open looking at different teams. If you change worlds in one window it will change for any other open windows (or tabs) and you won't actually notice any difference until you go to another page, or in your case submit a gameplan. The blessings of technology (and cookies!)

Posted by theploww on 3/8/2012 10:46:00 PM (view original):
I always have to give myself a sanity check to make sure I am looking at the right team, especially during recruiting time when I have multiple windows open looking at different teams. If you change worlds in one window it will change for any other open windows (or tabs) and you won't actually notice any difference until you go to another page, or in your case submit a gameplan. The blessings of technology (and cookies!)

That would explain my situation!

Its nice to see I'm not the only one this has happened to

I'm still choking on the first time I tried to recruit using my Smartphone and doubled the scout trips I sent to a guy.  Then after wasting about 1/4 of my recruiting money I didn't even sign him!

My first season playing HD, I signed up for a team as soon as the jobs opened. I knew I had a few days before recruiting, so I didn't go back to the site. About five weeks later, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten about the team. We went 0-27 with (I think) 8 walkons (or maybe it auto-recruited for me, I cannot remember). That was a waste of $8.

Posted by usc4life on 3/8/2012 11:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by theploww on 3/8/2012 10:46:00 PM (view original):
I always have to give myself a sanity check to make sure I am looking at the right team, especially during recruiting time when I have multiple windows open looking at different teams. If you change worlds in one window it will change for any other open windows (or tabs) and you won't actually notice any difference until you go to another page, or in your case submit a gameplan. The blessings of technology (and cookies!)

That would explain my situation!

Its nice to see I'm not the only one this has happened to

me too. frustrating. luckily I noticed and just had to rework my game plans

A few years ago, WIS changed the order on the recruiting page.  I knew that but, hurriedly, I clicked on the OLD location for phone calls.  Instead of 10 phone calls, I sent the recruit 10 home visits. Needless to say,  it was a difficult recruiting season

Posted by usc4life on 3/8/2012 11:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by theploww on 3/8/2012 10:46:00 PM (view original):
I always have to give myself a sanity check to make sure I am looking at the right team, especially during recruiting time when I have multiple windows open looking at different teams. If you change worlds in one window it will change for any other open windows (or tabs) and you won't actually notice any difference until you go to another page, or in your case submit a gameplan. The blessings of technology (and cookies!)

That would explain my situation!

Its nice to see I'm not the only one this has happened to

Here's what I do to get around this situation.  I have 3 teams but use the different mirror links for each team exclusively.  I also keep 3 tabs open, with each tab specifically reserved for a given team.

So Team A I use the whatifsports.com prefixes AND BOOKMARK the standings page for easy access.  For Team B, I use the wisjournal.com prefixes AND BOOKMARK the standings page for easy access.  For Team C, i use the whatif.cincinnati prefixes AND BOOKMARK the standings page for easy access.  All my Team A stuff is done on a certain tab, all Team B stuff is done on a different tab, and all Team C stuff is done on a different tab.  Plus, the bookmarks help keep things straight. 

Interesting and effective approach. I've just gotten to the point now where its second nature to check which team I'm on before making any changes.

All four of my teams have different set of colors. Back in the day, I coached three teams at once that had a white-blue color scheme, and got them all mixed up. It never happens anymore. I know that sounds strange - but it makes the difference in differentiating teams when I'm completely out of it (or strategizing after a night of drinking)

Posted by tkimble on 3/8/2012 10:01:00 PM (view original):
A couple seasons ago, we had a couple weird late-game collapses.  Not until conf play did I realize it was because I had changed my sets two seasons ago but failed to change the late-game O/D to the normal O/D, oops.

I recently did the exact same thing with both my teams except the weird thing is for one of them I never changed the offense but the late game offensive settings were different from what I normally run. They really need one of those assistant coach emails about that like if you are running a set normally that you dont practice.