Hi guys, new player here. I had a series of questions about going against certain defenses and figured this was a good place to ask. Apologies in advance if this is posted in the wrong place or formatted incorrectly.

So in DIII, I've been running a customized pro-set and standard trips as my two offensive formations, so I'm used to having teams play a 4-3 against the pro and nickel against trips. I am currently halfway through a game against someone ranked significantly higher than me (Top 5 WIS vs my high 30s WIS) wit the pregame spread around 10.5. I noticed that he exclusively practices and runs the 4-3 no matter what, so I put more emphasis on the trips formation as well as passing plays in general figuring he would be weaker against passing plays. I noted that while I had a lot of passing plays halted after very minimal gains (2-6 yards) I was almost always successful with longer passes (which is fairly untypical from what I have seen out of my team so far this season). I was able to complete enough big passing plays to actually be up at halftime. My questions are…

• Is my relative success in the mid-long passing game attributable to running trips against a 4-3 or is it an outlier half?
• I actually noted that I have more success running the ball out of trips than running out of the pro set. Can this be attributed to my opponent predicting the run against pro but not against trips?
• I am getting sacked quite a bit…4 times in ~15 attempts I believe. Is there any way to counter this? His DL and LBs are generally better than my OL + TE, but not by a significant margin. Do I counter with shorter passes to get the ball out of the pocket faster, or is that negligible with this engine? I’m assuming he’s just blitzing a lot…is the blitzing strategy what’s more responsible for my big passing completions?
• This one is more of a general question, but I’ve been against a few opponents that seem to run the ball at least 70% of the time. How can I best optimize my Defense against this with the options I have in DIII? Most of my team is inherited with high 4-3, low/mid 4-4, and pretty low 5-2 and 3-4 formation IQs. I understand that 5-2 and 4-4 would be better at stuffing the run, but is it worth trading off ~60-70 4-3 formation IQ for ~30-35 4-4 or ~20 5-2 formation IQ just to counter the run? For now, I just have my guys running 4-3 while anticipating the run ~70% of the time against I and Pro formations. If it’s helpful at all, my 4th and 5th DL guys are roughly comparable in terms of skill to my 4th LB, maybe a little big stronger.

You sound knowledgeable about football.

1. Get to the next level asap. You will be able to make the changes you are talking about.

2. Player talent rules the day. As a couple of extreme examples. If a team was stacked, and playing a far lower talent team. They could do whatever they like. They could run shotgun vs your 4-4 defense, and only run the ball with QB and WRs, and shred you. They could use a Dime defense vs your double tight offense. Guess pass and you wouldn't be able to run on them.

3. Once teams are somewhat close in talent, the game planning counts ...but, as it pertains to THIS game. Forget everything you know about football. Learn how this game works. It's two different things.

Thanks for the response, everything you said sounds reasonable to me. I've been catching on to the importance of the separation of 'real-life' football and this game, which has been pretty interesting. I get that player talent is by far the biggest factor and that it is often better to pick a formation based off the talent that will be playing in that formation instead of based on any particular matchup. Since I can't do anything about my player's skills overnight, I like to focus a lot of thought into game planning or at least understanding the game engine better.

In this case, I am hoping to understand the significance of me, say, running a heavier-than-normal pass offense against someone who only plays a 4-3. I'm hoping to understand why me running the ball out of trips has been so much more successful than running the ball out of pro in this game when he plays a 4-3 against both (both are set to 75% outside). I want to know how I beat what is probably a heavy blitz defense with what I have now (aka, more checkdowns to my RB, shorter passes in general, runs to the outside?). I totally get that player ratings is the significant factor here, but I also think there are clear effects of the play calling in effect here, such as me getting sacked way more than normal despite having played against other teams with comparable LBs and DLs and me completing a lot more big passes despite his corners being much better than teams I've completed less passes against. A lot of this will be trial and error on my end, but it's always helpful to consult the experts here that have been doing this for years.

I wish I knew all the matchup scenarios also. For years I thought it was in my favor to play a Nickel vs a team that uses Pro Set and passes 100% of the time. As a RL coach, I love that matchup. Here? I have been told repeatably that in fact it was not good.

I disagree. I play almost exclusively ND which as you know is mainly a running formation in RL. But I have been stopped (believe I won but it was close) by an all Nickel D.
So my take on it is you need the right talent for the things that you want to do. I believe(have no hard facts except experience) that if you have Lb's and Db's with great tackling and strength(as well as the other important attributes) they can stop a run game out of ND.
Wanna run an all 4-3 then I would get Fast lb's and all around good db's. You get the picture. I just dont believe there is only certain def formations that can stop certain offense formations. It's the personnel that make them up and what do you do with them in which situations(def against run or pass on 2nd and 9, etc., to blitz or not to blitz ? etc.))

Go with mojo.

I run 4-3 all the time, and can (usually) hold my own against passing offenses. Yes, good LBs with decent speed are very important.