I’m just getting back into HD and playing a lot more DI than previously. I am in my third season (Granted more of my second season because I reserve my squads and didn’t apply) of a rebuild at most of my schools and I don’t remember having this much trouble winning. I scheduled a bunch of upperclassmen loaded Sims on the road, I know playing on the road is a disadvantage but I was trying to bolster my resume with good wins not just easy wins.

With that being said, I have better squads and ratings than the teams I’m playing, so the only thing I can think of is the disparity in IQs is the reason I’m frankly not just losing but getting my a$$ handed to me most games. Am I missing something else? Because I’m getting real tired of losing to Sims.

Thanks.

1st - it's likely you're not properly evaluating what 'better' really means. So I can take a closer look at your teams and provide some feedback.

As for IQs, these are certainly a factor but just one of many. I actually had a thought that IQs were slightly overrated and I'm doing an experiment with E Stroudsburg with a low IQ team. I made the E8 last season and my seniors were around A- and Jrs/Soph were Bs while Frosh were Cs. I'm going to continue to run with this experiment and see how I do and share results on forums later. I need to see if I can sustain success or not.

I think IQ is crucial, but more so in BIG games. Like E8 and beyond. So unless the benis experiment has some elite success, I'm not sure it can prove anything. If you continue to lose in S16s and E8s, I'll feel like it's a wasted experiment somewhat. If you get past that stage at a decent rate, I'll eat my words

Posted by topdogggbm on 6/30/2020 9:33:00 AM (view original):
I think IQ is crucial, but more so in BIG games. Like E8 and beyond. So unless the benis experiment has some elite success, I'm not sure it can prove anything. If you continue to lose in S16s and E8s, I'll feel like it's a wasted experiment somewhat. If you get past that stage at a decent rate, I'll eat my words

Yeah, I've always felt like IQ is a great equalizer but only when there's a substantial gap, particularly in individual matchups. I.e. an elite player with a C IQ going up against an average player with an A+ IQ may have more turnovers & fouls than you'd expect, even with a decent ATH/SPD advantage. The A+ IQ player may also put up better offensive (& defensive, but I've definitely seen more on offense) efficiency numbers than you'd expect.

I think there's a meaningful delta between an A- and an A/A+ too, but I think talent gaps can offset that. In a vacuum if two teams were exactly equal talent wise and one had A- IQ starters and the other had A+ IQ starters, I think the A+ IQ team wins 7 or 8 times out of 10.

Assuming you're referring to your North Texas squad, even if you don't factor in IQs, I think the sims you scheduled seem to be about as good as your squad. I think that's a combination of North Texas not being quite there yet, and the quality of the sims you scheduled. You probably got a little unlucky in some ways (you probably should have at least one win out of the Eastern IL/Murray State/BSU/HC matchups), but for the most part if you're trying to get a great RPI with the veteran-sims-on-the-road strategy, you need to make sure you can confidently beat those teams.

I handle IQ pretty unsophisticatedly, as I just treat it as another skill that is very valuable at every position, like Athleticism or Defense. It's a lot easier to scan the Athleticism or Defense ratings between two teams and quickly say if one team is much better or worse than the other, but I treat Offense IQ/Defense IQ combined as just as important as those two (very important) skills.

Posted by ltfuller on 6/30/2020 10:18:00 AM (view original):
Assuming you're referring to your North Texas squad, even if you don't factor in IQs, I think the sims you scheduled seem to be about as good as your squad. I think that's a combination of North Texas not being quite there yet, and the quality of the sims you scheduled. You probably got a little unlucky in some ways (you probably should have at least one win out of the Eastern IL/Murray State/BSU/HC matchups), but for the most part if you're trying to get a great RPI with the veteran-sims-on-the-road strategy, you need to make sure you can confidently beat those teams.

I handle IQ pretty unsophisticatedly, as I just treat it as another skill that is very valuable at every position, like Athleticism or Defense. It's a lot easier to scan the Athleticism or Defense ratings between two teams and quickly say if one team is much better or worse than the other, but I treat Offense IQ/Defense IQ combined as just as important as those two (very important) skills.

Referencing North Texas, Central Michigan, and Texas Tech, hah, probably just the compounding losses from all three has driven me insane. I guess I need to better evaluate and schedule more confidently comfortable wins with just scheduling just complete bums that I will run over. And yes just scanning quickly without try to dissect all the stats, I tend to have a better athletic and defensive team than my opponents and am baffled but how much better they shoot and shut my team down, and I guess I assumed with it being a Sim that can’t gameplan and I can, it would favor me most games but obviously our records show otherwise.

Years ago there was a coach named ‘robotdevil.’ He did an experiment (and posted results on the forums) where he put 0 practice minutes into an O/D and everything was allocated towards attributes. He had some monster D3 teams but never seemed to reach the S16.