I know there has been talk before about how often fumbles occur as opposed to throwing INT's. With that said, are these 2 RB's good for D1AA or just OK? Through 5 games Lopez has 5 fumbles and Cotton has 4.

Lopez - https://www.whatifsports.com/gd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?pid=11480705

Cotton - https://www.whatifsports.com/gd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?pid=11480190



I found this bit of info in the dev chats :

If you set your running to conservative, will it help cut down on fumbling? (jeffkahleb - Hall of Famer - 3:15 PM)

It will help because you will run less risky plays, but fumbles are more a result of your player's technique, strength, and elusiveness. Technique for carrying the football, strength for holding onto it, and elusiveness to avoid the type of hit that would cause a fumble. Fatigue also plays a role because tired players tend to get sloppy.

This was from 2005 so I have no idea if it's even relevant at this time. But if it is, at least Cotton should be less likely to fumble with his combo of strength, tech and elusiveness. Is there more to it? Do you think OL play has anything to do with the RB success? Perhaps younger OL ( freshmen and sophomores) would be more likely to whiff on blocks and allow big hits? Just trying to figure out if I should recruit differently at RB or emphasize other attributes while training to "limit" the fumbles.

I think we need to pause a moment and rejoice in someone actually researching a question. Well done sir.

There is a more recent dev chat on the issue (2011) posted below.

Turnovers were a little off and have been adjusted to better account for player abilities. In particular, the game instinct and technique rating impact on interceptions for quarterbacks was ramped up along with hands and strength of ball carriers in determining fumbles. Also keep in mind that the defense plays a large role in turnovers as well. Tight coverage obviously helps produce interceptions along with pressure on the quarterback and great tacklers with good strength cause fumbles at a higher rate.

nitros

P.S. My opinion is that the issue is not on the offensive side (I have recruited great hands/str RB's that fumble too much). I think the issue is that there are too many "hard tackles" causing the fumble. My opinion is that there is a random roll upon a "hard tackle" that results in a fumble. I also think "hard tackle" is based on defender attributes. This is all speculation on my part with regard to the random roll.

Cotton has 92 strength and 89 elusiveness. I know 5 games is a small sample size, but if you follow Cotton's fumbles through the season, maybe we could eliminate those as contributors.

I'll report back here at seasons end with how many fumbles Cotton had.

Thank you guys for posting. In Hayes I run a very heavy run offense, so fumbles have been the bane of my existence. I always attributed fumbles to the hands rating and inside/outside run feature only, but never considered technique, formation iq or defensive ability to force. I will keep an eye out.

Posted by coach_ruiz on 9/8/2018 5:34:00 AM (view original):
Thank you guys for posting. In Hayes I run a very heavy run offense, so fumbles have been the bane of my existence. I always attributed fumbles to the hands rating and inside/outside run feature only, but never considered technique, formation iq or defensive ability to force. I will keep an eye out.

More runs = more fumbles. I wish we had some expanded stats so you could see how many carries per fumble. yatzr's game analyzer seems to be able to scrape data from box scores; maybe he could develop an advanced stats engine?

Fumbles drive me crazy way more than interceptions do. With interceptions, there is a clear method to reducing/eliminating them. Not so with fumbles.